Ram:
That was a very funny piece :-). Enjoyed it thoroughly.
I will never venture near Lutefisk, just as I don't anywhere near
dried fish, no matter how tasty it supposedly is, or for that matter
'burha-tamwl' ( fermented betel-nut).
But for those who might be familiar with Aqvavit, it is a cool
drink.
A great Martini recipe here for Martini drinkers:
1 jigger*Aalborg Aqvavit
1 jigger dry gin
Shake it over ice, serve it with a couple of olives ( without
ice)
Just the thing for a cold evening with good friends! Be careful
if you had more than two--don't even THINK of driving. Designated
driver--or else! I won't touch the stuff in warm weather, can't handle
it any more.
* There are many kinds of Aqvavit, some are flavored. Only
Aalborg Aqvavit
makes a good Martini.
c-da
At 10:26 AM -0600 1/30/06, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
Thanks Saurav for bringing up Lutefisk. Over the years,I have heard of this 'horrible dish' before. It seems even Norwegians (specially Norwegian-Americans) passionately hate it.
So, just for fun I searched for this dish again, and bingo, we have websites, preparations 'from scratch', discussions, contests etc, etc on lutefisk.
But here is one (if one is interested), thats both humorous and tells us a bit of history of this strange dish.
From the description this Lutefisk maas ain't no 'maasor tenga aanja'. :)
--Ram da
___________________________________
Make Love, Not Lutefisk
By Dave Fox
Hear that gagging sound? It's Norwegian-Americans attempting to connect with their heritage.
It happens every year at this time; thousands of people choke down an infamous concoction called lutefisk. What people in America don't know is that most Norwegians came to their senses decades ago and quit eating the stuff.
Lofoten Islands, Norway: Thousands of deceased cod sway in the breeze from drying racks. After this bizarre hazing ritual, they will become lutefisk.
To make lutefisk, catch yourself a cod. Take out the bones, skin it, salt it, and hang it out to dry for several weeks until it hardens and smells like a dumpster. Then, bring it inside and soak it in lye for several days.
Yes, lye - a substance defined by dictionary.com as "a strong caustic alkaline solution of potassium salts, obtained by leaching wood ashes. It is much used in making soap, etc."
Et cetera indeed. When you use it to make fish, you get a gelatinous blob that slithers down your throat and makes you wish you had cooked a turkey for Christmas dinner like a normal American.
Norwegians didn't invent lutefisk because they thought it was tasty. A long time ago, in the pre-refrigeration epoch, salting and drying fish was an efficient way to preserve it. They soaked it in lye afterward to pull the salt out and - believe it or not - make it more palatable. A century ago, lutefisk really was a staple in the Norwegian diet. Also a century ago, a lot of Norwegians fled the country.
To the lutefisk-eating Norwegian-Americans out there who are trying to keep in touch with your roots, here are some factoids to bring you to your senses:
Refrigerators have arrived in the Old World, as has the electricity needed to power them. They now have more pleasant ways to keep food fresh.
Today, more lutefisk is consumed in Wisconsin than in Norway.
Norwegians buy more frozen pizzas per capita than any other nationality. They consume 13,000 tons of frozen pizza annually - an average of more than five and a half pounds of cheesy goodness for every man, woman, and screaming toddler.
Yes, frozen pizza is a Norwegian staple food today. Why not get in touch with the 21st century and start a new holiday tradition?
I am a proud Norwegian-American, as is my mother, who every year at Christmas bakes about 74 pounds of traditional Norwegian Christmas cookies and other edible things. She never made me eat lutefisk when I was a child. This is because she loves me.
A couple of months ago, however, I tasted lutefisk for the first time - voluntarily. I did this for two reasons:
1) On every Scandinavia tour I lead, someone asks me about lutefisk. I tell them how horrible it is, which felt hypocritical since I had never even sniffed the stuff before.
2) I was intoxicated, and my judgment was impaired when I asked to try it.
The way it happened was I had just arrived in Drøbak, the town where I once was an exchange student. Per, my Norwegian host father, handed me a beer and a shot of akvavit and said, "We're having something for dinner tonight that you won't like. So we'll make you a pork chop."
"What is it?" I asked, and drank my akvavit.
"Lutefisk," he laughed, refilling my akvavit glass.
Per sniffs the lutefisk between shots of akvavit.
"Are you serious?" I asked, drinking my second shot of akvavit. In the 15 years I have known Per, I had never seen him eat lutefisk before. But I sensed he was serious. The previous summer I had narrowly avoided home-cooked whale by taking him out for Indian food. He didn't remember the whale steaks thawing in the fridge at home until our curry arrived at the table.
"Yes," Per answered, filling my glass again. "It's the first lutefisk of the year."
This conversation and refilling continued for an hour or so while Per prepared the fish along with the traditional stewed peas and bacon drippings that are used to "enhance the flavor." At one point, Wibeke, my sister's girlfriend, knocked at the door.
"We're having lutefisk tonight," Per said gleefully. "Will you stay for dinner?"
Wibeke ran, very fast, far, far away.
By the time dinner was served, I was on approximately my 93rd shot of akvavit, happily munching my pork chop, when I was seized with drunken bravado. "I really should try that," I said to Tordis, my Norwegian host mother. "Can I have a bite?"
All other conversation ceased. "Are you sure?" Tordis asked.
"Yeah."
Moments before the lutefisk attacked, the evil bone was captured on film, dangling from my fork.
As I held the fork up to my mouth, I got that same sickly feeling you get as you climb aboard a roller coaster, wondering if you are about to become violently nauseous. I wanted to back out but everyone was watching. A quivering glob of what looked like jellyfish dangled menacingly from my fork. Mind over matter, I thought, and shoved it in my mouth, intending to gulp it down so fast, it wouldn't register on my taste buds.
That's when disaster struck.
There was a bone. One of those needle-like fish bones that pokes you in the tongue and gets caught between your teeth. I had to dislodge it from my mouth before I could swallow. The lutefisk sat there while I wrestled with the bone. It wrapped itself around my tongue like a lye-flavored python, attacking every taste bud. It might have been my only bite of lutefisk in my life, but it wasn't going down without a fight.
Finally, my mouth was bone-free, and I gulped hard to get the fish down my throat.
I had done it! I could now speak from experience when telling people how horrible lutefisk is. And it was.
To be completely honest though, it wasn't as bad as I had expected. It was surprisingly flavorless, with a texture somewhere between Jell-O and mashed potatoes. Nevertheless, I did not ask for a second bite.
There are worse culinary traditions in the world. In Athens, a friend once cajoled me into trying chilled sheep's brain. ("It's a Greek delicacy," she said.) In Iceland, specialties include sheep's testicles, and shark that is buried in the ground for several weeks until it's rotten. No lye is required. They just dig it up and wash it down with their local firewater, called Black Death. Scotland has haggis, made from a sheep's stomach lining. In America, we have egg salad sandwiches from vending machines that are kept warm by 40-watt light bulbs for an average of seven months before anyone eats them. (They taste fine as long as you swallow them whole without removing the plastic wrap).
So Norway is not the only nation with frightening cuisine. Nevertheless, it saddens me that lutefisk has become representative of my heritage when most Norwegians can't stand it.
An article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer earlier this week reported that Seattle's Norwegian community is in mourning this holiday season because for the first time in decades, not a single Seattle restaurant will offer lutefisk. The article quoted Kathleen Knudsen, editor of the Western Viking newspaper, as saying, "The Norwegian community is in a state of shock."
Speak for yourself Kathleen.
The holidays are stressful in many ways, and every year at this time, I see interviews with psychologists warning that not all holiday traditions are good for you. "Move on, and make your own traditions," they say.
So for Norwegian-Americans suffering from lutefisk withdrawal, fret not. It's time to move into the modern age like the real Norwegians have. I have just returned from the grocery store. I am happy to report there are plenty of frozen pizzas to go around.
On 1/30/06, xourov pathok <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
santanu-da,
there is a basic difference---the more we use natural
resources, the more we need to worry about
replenishing it; whereas the more we use use social
artifacts, the more we are conserving them!!
i believe what you are trying to hand down are the
values you attach to laru-pitha. this, as you pointed
out, is impossible. what you could do instead is let
others (kids, others) *participate* in what is
valuable to *you* and let them assign their own values
to it. that is, if laru-pitha is important to you,
let the kids know it, and let them just participate in
the rituals without suffocating in your values.
take this for example:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/lutefisk.html
it is hard to imagine a norwegian kid say at the
dinner table: "yuck, mommy, vegetables again? i want
lutefisk!" and yet, they grow up and have
lutefisk...once a year in their adult life!! they
grow to see some value in a poisonous dish! (btw,
given a chance, i would eat lutefisk too, at least for
once.)
so i do not see it as a problem like the way you do.
and i hope you see what exactly i meant by the
"personal".
saurav
--- "Roy, Santanu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Saurav:
>
> Thanks for explaining. But based on what I know of
> you, I am not quite sure that personal sentiments
> are the only reason why YOU care about these issues.
> I may be wrong - but you probably see a future
> social value to conservation.
>
> You see, I wrote about this because I see it as a
> vexing problem.
>
> The current generation values certain attributes and
> wants to conserve it for the benefit of future
> generations. But the preferences of the future
> generations may be very different and are partly
> determined by how the current generation influences
> social change.
>
> Take the case of the natural environment. The case
> for conserving the natural environment is the value
> it will yield to future generations. Because we know
> they will value it. To not conserve, would hurt them
> (based on all current conception of what they and
> their world will be like).
>
> If you want to extend the same argument to cultural
> attributes (including language, religion etc) - it
> gets a bit dicey. It is qite possible and likely
> that a future generation may assign no value (apart
> from historical curiosity) to such objects. So when
> we ask for conservation, we also implicitly ask that
> social change ought to occur in such a way that the
> future generations will actually value what we want
> to conserve - in some sense, they should be somewhat
> like us. This is a much more difficult proposition.
>
> If we believe, the future generation will not care
> about laru pitha, then it is rational for us to
> actually not impart the skill of making laru pithas
> to our progenies. But because we do not teach our
> progenies how to make laru pitha or to value them,
> they will not value it. Thus, the disappearance of
> laru pitha becomes a self-fulilling conjecture.
>
> On the other hand, if we collectively modifed
> current society and not only taught our children to> make laru pithas but also created the kind of social
> transition that allows the making and eating of laru
> pithas to flourish in the future, the value we place
> on conserving laru pithas fr the future could also
> be self-fulfilling.
>
> Is one self-fulfilling conjecture better than the
> other from a social point of view? I don't know.
>
> All I know is that it is probably in this context,
> that one must understand the historical role of
> conservationists of socio-cultural attrbutes.
>
> Sorry, I am not being very articulate. More later.
> Take care -
>
> Santanu-da.
>
> Santanu-da.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xourov pathok [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Sun 1/29/2006 2:44 PM
> To: Roy, Santanu; [email protected]
> Subject: RE: Threat to the assamese
>
>
>
> "Roy, Santanu" < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Saurav:
> I understand. But quite apart from the context in
> which this discussion arose - let us for a moment
> suppose that Bihu simply degenerates into a holiday
> - an excuse for urban young people to get drunk,
> play hindi music etc. In the extreme, lets suppose
> it simply disappears - no memory whatsover. For that
> matter lets suppose, all of the traditional
> festivals of all the people disappear. Would it
> imply that the people have lost themselves? Or that
> society has simply evolved that new festivals and
> new traditions grounded in the current social
> reality of the people have emerged. And in that
> changed reality, there will be a new perception of
> the people about their past that will allow them to
> alter the essence of what it means to be an
> Assamese. Hundred years from now, a new Xourav will
> be identifying threats to Assamese culture thar you
> - saurav - would consider to be sacrilege - will be
> fighting to defend a new language - that you might
> consider entirely alien today.
> Santanu-da.
>
> santanu-da,
>
> you know the answer to this as well as i do. it
> would by no means imply that the people have lost
> themselves. they would have have simply moved on.
> and indeed a new xourov would be listing the new
> threats to assamese society!!
>
> but you should be able to differentiate between two
> aspects of the issue. the objective reality---which
> is what i tried to portray, and the value of the of
> the cultural artifacts to me, personally. they are
> two different things. you know it, as well as i do.
> in one you attach a personal value, in the other
> you don't.
>
> somehow, the personal value provides a momentum, to
> sustain it in one form or the other. and as you
> mentioned in reply to utpal-da's mail, this is a
> natural tendency.
>
> saurav
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Bring words and photos together (easily) with
> PhotoMail - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail.
>
>
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