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Lutefisk--One Traveler's Experience
Rating: PG-13
Quality: (Quality: Unrated)
It is my wont when traveling to forgo the touristic in favor of the
real, to persuade my kind hosts, whoever they may be, that an evening in
the local, imbibing pints of whatever the natives use as intoxicants,
would be more interesting than another espresso in another place called
Cafe Opera. Chiefest among my interests is the Favorite Dish: the plate,
cup, or bowl of whatever stuff my hosts consider most representative of
the regions virtues. As I just finished a week's work in Oslo, this dish
was of course lutefisk. (snd f/x: organ music in minor key - crescendo
and out.)
The Norwegians are remarkably single-minded in their attachment to
the stuff. Every one of them would launch themselves into a hydrophobic
frenzy of praise on the mere mention of the word. Though these panegyrics
were as varied as they were fulsome, they shared one element in common.
Every testimonial to the recondite deliciousness of cod soaked in lye
ended with the phrase "...but I only eat it once a year." When I pressed
my hosts as to _why_ they would voluntarily forswear what was by all
accounts the tastiest fish dish 364 days a year, each of them said "Oh,
you can't eat lutefisk more than once a year." (Their unanimity on this
particular point carried with it the same finality as the answers you get
when casually asking a Scientologist about L. Ron's untimely demise.)
Despite my misgivings from these interlocutions however, there was
nothing for it but to actually try the stuff, as it was clearly the local
delicacy. A plan was hatched whereby my hosts and I would distill
ourselves to a nearby brassiere, and I would order something tame like
reindeer steak, and they would order lutefisk. The portions at this
particular establishment were large, they assured me, and when I
discovered for myself how scrumptious jellied fish tasted, I could have
an adequate amount from each of their plates to satiate my taste for this
newfound treat.
Ah, but the best laid plans... My hostess, clearly feeling in a
holiday mood (and perhaps further cheered by my imminent departure as
their house guest) proceeded to order lutefisk all round.
"But I was going to order reinde..."
"Nonononono," she said, "you must have your own lutefisk. It would be
rude to bring you to Norway and not give you your own lutefisk."
My mumbled suggestion that I had never been one to stand on formality
went unnoticed, and moments later, somewhere in the kitchen, there was a
lutefisk with my name on it.
The waitress, having conveyed this order to the chef, returned with
a bottle and three shot glasses and spent some time interrogating my host.
He laughed as she left, and I asked what she said.
"Oh she said 'Is the American _really_ going to eat lutefisk?' and
when I told her you were, she said that it takes some time to get used to
it."
"How long?" I asked.
"Well, she said a couple of years." replied my host.
In the meantime, my hostess was busily decanting a clear liquid into
the shot glass and passing it my way. When I learned that it was aquavit,
I demurred, as I intended to get some writing done on the train.
"Oh no," said my hostess, donning the smile polite people use when
giving an order, "you _must_ have aquavit with lutefisk."
To understand the relationship between aquavit and lutefisk, here's
an experiment you can do at home. In addition to aquavit, you will need
a slice of lemon, a cracker, a dishtowel, ketchup, a piece of lettuce,
some caviar, and a Kit-Kat candy bar.
1. Take a shot aquavit.
2. Take two. (They're small.)
3. Put a bit of caviar on a bit of lettuce.
4. Put the lettuce on a cracker.
5. Squeeze some lemon juice on the caviar.
6. Pour some ketchup on the Kit-Kat bar.
7. Tie the dishtowel around your eyes.
If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and
ketchup on a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough aquavit
to be ready for lutefisk. Return to step one.
The first real sign of trouble was when a plate arrived and was set
in front of my host, sitting to my left. It contained a collection of dark
and aromatic food stuffs of a variety of textures. Having steeled myself
for an encounter with a pale jelly, I was puzzled at its appearance, and
I leaned over to get a better look.
"Oh," said my host, "that's not lutefisk. I changed my mind and
ordered the juletid plate. It is pork and sausages."
"But you're leaving for New York tomorrow, so tonight is your last
chance to have lutefisk this year" I pointed out.
"Oh, well," he said, tucking into what looked like a very tasty pork
chop.
Shortly thereafter the two remaining plates arrived, each containing
the lutefisk itself, boiled potatoes, and a mash of peas from which all
the color had been expertly tortured. There was also a garnish of a slice
of cucumber, a wedge of lemon, and a sliver of red pepper. "This is
bullshit!" said my hostess, snatching the garnish off her plate.
"What's wrong," I asked, "not enough lemon?"
"No, a plate of lutefisk should be totally gray!"
Indeed, with the removal of the garnish, it was totally gray, and
waiting for me to dig in. There being no time like the present, I tore a
forkful away from the cod carcass and lifted it to my mouth.
"Wait," said my host, "you can't eat it like that!"
"OK," I said, "how should I eat it?"
"Mash up your potatoes, and then mix a bit of lutefisk in, and then
add some bacon." he said, handing me a tureen filled to the brim with
bacon bits floating in fat.
I began to strain some of the bits out of the tureen. "No, not like
that, like this" he said, snatching up the tureen and pouring three
fingers of pure bacon grease directly over the beige mush I had made from
the potatoes and lutefisk already on my plate.
"Now can I eat it?"
"No, not yet, you have to mix in the mustard."
"And the pepper" added my hostess, "you have to have lutefisk with
lots and lots of pepper. And then you have to eat it right away, because
if it gets cold, it's horrible."
They proceeded to add pepper and mustard in amounts I felt were more
appropriate to ingredients rather than flavors, but no matter. At this
point what I had was an undercooked hash brown with mustard on it,
flavored with a little bit of lutefisk. "How bad could it be?" I thought
to myself as I lifted my fork to my mouth.
The moment every traveler lives for is the native dinner where,
throwing caution to the wind and plunging into a local delicacy which
ought by rights to be disgusting, one discovers that it is not only
delicious but that it also contradicts a previously held prejudice about
food, that it expands ones culinary horizons to include surprising new
smells, tastes, and textures.
Lutefisk is not such a dish.
Lutefisk is instead pretty much what you'd expect of jellied cod; it
is a foul and odiferous goo, whose gelatinous texture and rancid oily
taste are locked in spirited competition to see which can be the more
responsible for rendering the whole completely inedible. How to describe
that first bite? It's a bit like describing passing a kidneystone to the
uninitiated. If you are talking to someone else who has lived through the
experience, a nod will suffice to acknowledge your shared pain, but to
explain it to the person who has not been there, mere words seem
inadequate to the task. So it is with lutefisk. One could bandy about
the time honored phrases like "nauseating sordid gunk", "unimaginably
horrific", "lasting psychological damage", but these seem hollow when
applied to the task at hand. I will have to resort to a recipe for a kind
of metaphorical lutefisk, to describe the experience. Take marshmallows
made without sugar, blend them together with overcooked Japanese noodles,
and then bathe the whole liberally in acetone. Let it marinate in cod
liver oil for several days at room temperature. When it has achieved the
appropriate consistency (though the word "appropriate" is somewhat
problematic here), heat it to just above lukewarm, sprinkle in thousands
of tiny, sharp, invisible fish bones, and serve.
The waitress, returning to clear our plates, surveyed the half-eaten
goo I had left.
She nodded conspiratorially at me, said something to my host, and
left.
"What'd she say?, I asked.
"Oh, she said, 'I never eat lutefisk either. It tastes like python.'"
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