Lutefisk. WTF???

Allow me to establish a baseline here:  lutefisk is FUCKING abhorrent!!!  There, I've said it.  You don't like that?   Then go fuck yourself!!!

Being a west coaster I had never heard of lutefisk until I moved to Minneapolis in 1980 and was managing a restaurant there.  Shortly after Halloween we started taking reservations for the annual "Lutefisk Feast".  I innocently asked, "What the bloody hell is a 'Lutefisk Feast?' to one of my waiters.  And what he told me shocked my shorts off!!!  I swear to god, it sounded like two trains colliding, head on, over the middle of the Atlantic.  In a storm.  In the middle of a cataclysmic  meteor shower.  With sleet.  And Celine Dion singing in the back ground...

For those of you fortunate folks out there who don't know what lutefisk is, let me tell you that it is just plain nasty-ass shit.  With all of the wonderfully mind altering things we have outlawed we have somehow managed to keep this stuff not only alive and well but full blown sanctioned.  Now, in Minneapolis I found myself totally surrounded by what I called "Scanda-Hoovians".  An odd group of immigrants at best but apparently hell bent for leather on self punishment on a dietary level.  Yes, they have some wonderful stuff, ebelskivers being my favorite.  Think do-nut holes made from pancake batter swimming in  butter and fresh jam.  Those puppies could stop your heart.  But their coffee was so strong you needed to turn it over with a fork and they boiled every vegetable they ate for at least 3 days.  Their favorite "sauce" was Campbell's cream of mushroom soup.  And they called a casserole a hotdish.  Oh, yeah, and pepper was considered a dangerously "sharp" spice.  How fucking light-deprived was "Scanda-Hooooovia" to make them all this crazy???   I can only blame the New World.  And little Laura Ingles Wilder...  I actually have a book titled "Scandinavian  Humor And Other Myths".  It's so true it hurts...

OK, back to lutefisk...  I wouldn't poke this shit with a stick.  Yours or
mine.  The day before the "Feast" I walk in the front door of the hotel and smell something I can only describe as a chemical spill.  I go into the restaurant and it just gets stronger.  I walk into the kitchen and damned near puked.  Just to cover up the smell of the chemical spill.  I actually considered  calling in sick while I was at work!!!  My eyes were watering and I was gagging.  Lutefisk is cod that has been dried.  Into something resembling a very old cedar shake shingle.  At the holidays they then drag them out of storage and soak it in lye water (LYE WATER???   What are you loonies thing???  Isn't that shit poisonous???  Or at the very least unfit for human consumption???) before they steam it to death.  Into something that can only be described as  fish Jell-O.  It jiggles.  And not in a good way...  They then compliment this treat with potatoes that have been boiled to within an inch of surrender (drowning in butter with a sprinkle of parsley for "color" ), broccoli that has been boiling since last week, lefsa wedges and lingonberry sauce (truly, the worlds most sour berry prepared with enough sugar to rot your teeth) to cut the taste of the lefsa.  Oh yeah...  Happy Holidays!!!  When does the flogging start???

Over the next week I watched more than a thousand people come through the place every night and gorge on this crap  And ask for seconds.  Seconds???  This stuff gives a whole new meaning to the term "sloppy seconds".  As the wall paper peeled off and the stainless steel discolored and pitted.   By day three of of this insanity the stitching on my suit coat had completely dissolved  and both sleeves fell off as I seated a table of blue hairs one night.  And most of what was left of my tie tack committed suicide.  The rest had dissolved in quiet resignation...  I had no idea that gold could actually give up the ghost.

Now, I'm back in Wisconsin.  Eight miles south of here is town called Stoughton.  Pronounced "SsschtO-ton" because everyone there is from Norway.  And proud of it, too.  Norwegian flags on the light poles, the sidewalks are rosemaled into a stupor and the 17th of May makes the 4th of July look like a wake for a dead president.  SERIOUSLY Skanda-Hooooovian down there!!!  I swear to god, they have even hand embroiderded the manhole covers.  We have some wonderful friends down there.  Tonight they Twatter'd us and told they had just gotten back from Ole and Lena's (swear to god!!!) all-you-can-eat Lutefisk Luncheon (WTF???) and were properly satiated on the build your own lutefisk and  lefsa "taco" bar.  Again, WTF!!!  A lefsa taco???  With fish Jell-O???  I'd rather eat shit and die than eat lutefisk and watch the sun come tomorrow.  I shudder to  think what might come out of me...