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SOLERA DIAMOND VALLEY | DECEMBER 2018 17 By Dick Roppé, Resident For most of us, the winter holidays bring with them a time for preparing ethnic vittles. If, as with me, your heritage has roots in Scandinavia, you're probably familiar with lutefisk and lefse. When I was growing up, my mother, grandmother (100% Norwegian as was my father) and aunt dedicated a whole day to preparing lutefisk and lefse for the annual Christmas gathering of our Norwegian clan. Let me start with lutefisk. The following definition for lutefisk comes from the dictionary: "a Scandinavian dish prepared by soaking dried cod in lye to tenderize it, then skinning, boning, and boiling the fish to a gelatinous consistency." Sounds delicious, yes? Well, as youngsters, my brother, sister, cousins and I were not too keen on "fish Jello" - as we called it. I remember the lutefisk being boiled on the stove in a cloth bag with a drawstring. I have read that you shouldn't use sterling silver with lutefisk because it could permanently stain your utensils. Stainless steel is recommended - I'm not sure what it could do to plastic! To this day, I still haven't developed a taste for this old country staple. Village legend has it that half the Norwegians immigrated to America to escape the hated lutefisk and the other half came here to sing its praises. Ironically, more lutefisk is consumed per capita in the United States than in Norway. Let's move on to my favorite – lefse. This tasty flatbread is made from mashed potatoes and flour and looks a lot like a flour tortilla. My mother's recipe for lefse was handed down to me on a yellowed and worn 3 x 5 inch index card now over 75 years old. It calls for seven pounds of potatoes, one cup of Crisco and 10 cups of flour. At the top of the card it says, "Makes 100 lefse." Let me explain a little about making lefse. Once the ingredients are mixed, you take a golf ball size glob and roll it into circle about 10 inches in diameter and about an eighth of an inch thick. All this is done while splashing on a liberal amount of flour to keep the lefse from sticking to the rolling pin. It's then placed on an ungreased griddle and flipped - with a lefse stick - each side being cooked (35 - 45 seconds) until light brown spots appear. What do you roll up in the lefse, you ask? The elders loaded it up with lutefisk. Cinnamon and butter was my favorite. You can easily find several recipes for lefse on the Internet. As an adult, over the years at Christmas time, I've tried making lefse but I've never been able to duplicate the quality produced by that trio of ladies in the kitchen so many years ago. Now I order it through Mrs. Olson's Lefse. When I did make lefse, I got my mashed potatoes right out of the box. I can hear mom, grandma and my aunt saying, "You what!?" Holiday Ruminations And Reflections

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