Learning about Scandinavian Culture in Door County (Wisconsin) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
I had the chance to visit Wisconsin’s Door County, located northeast of Milwaukee on a peninsula that juts out into Lake Michigan with my family when I lived in Wisconsin. Door County is famous for the fall colors of its trees, and since it was September I naturally wanted to visit.
When my daughter would want to join the conversation, I would say, “Tell me when you see cows, too,” so our talk was interspersed with cow sightings along the way. As for me, I did not want to miss anything related to gastronomy and worried that I would miss the fish boil as we passed all the secondary roads we had to take between Madison and Door County to get there.
We arrived an hour before the fish boil, but that was not much time to get dressed for dinner. I got my hotel room key and went to my room in the sprawling complex that made up the resort. I arrived at the room, inserted my key, and broke it in half, leaving a piece in the lock. My daughter started crying, because we would not be able to get into our room.
I called from a hallway courtesy phone and explained my predicament. The hotel staff person arrived promptly and told me that I was trying to get into the wrong room. He took me to the right room without lecturing me. Time to get to the fish boil was slipping away.
I met my long-suffering car companion downstairs, and we drove to the restaurant where we met our spouses. The telephone book in our room had a good explanation of this culinary specialty that put all the essentials in a nutshell. I have paraphrased and supplemented the information as follows:
The Legendary Fish Boil
Scandinavian settlers and lumberjacks in Door County prepared fish steaks with potatoes and onions. They threw it all in a pot and boiled it over an open fire. Just before serving the fish boil, you throw gasoline over the fire and let the flames cause some of the stew to boil over . You eat the fish with plenty of melted butter, a favorite beverage, and cherry pie. Door County is famous for its cherries.
The next morning my husband, daughter, and I went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. We sat by a window and looked out over the tops of trees that were already turning orange, red, and golden yellows. I castigated myself for being such a city girl and not knowing the names of the trees. I could not take my eyes off the scenery. I felt very fortunate to see this spot and understood why so many people from Chicago came here to escape the big city.
When my daughter and I came back to the room, I made plans to go into Egg Harbor. Egg Harbor I discovered is trendy with many of shops selling clothing, crafts, and souvenirs. There was no historical museum in town, or maybe I just could not find it. I did get a small brochure at the information center that described how the town got its name in 1825 in one sentence, which basically said that there was a fight with eggs between six men on a trading flotilla.
I was on a quest to buy a guide book about Door County and its history. I went to a fabulous market on Main Street. I only had a few minutes to look around, but a few items caught my eye – big city newspapers in the doorway, roasted chicken, anchovy paste, a great selection of wines from Europe and California, freshly baked muffins and breads, and vegetables carefully displayed in woven baskets. I bought some postcards of Door County for my journal.
After that I went to several trendy shops. I bought a great, inexpensive book at a store about the wood stave churches of the world. Most of these churches are found in Norway, and I hoped I would visit them someday. Until then, I would soak up what I could from the little book. I walked down to the harbor through Harbor View Park. The yachts would soon be stored I thought as I felt a slight chill in the autumn air. We returned to the hotel to discuss lunch plans.
I told my husband how great the market was that I found, and we decided to go buy our lunch there. We bought a roasted chicken, a pound of pasta salad, a bag of freshly baked wheat rolls, and a dozen apples. We ordered dishes for our room from housekeeping and had a feast. My daughter loved the chicken and was delighted to get the big piece of the wishbone when we pulled it.
After lunch my family took naps while I wrote. When they woke up, we drove to Gill’s Rock. My daughter played at the rock beach with her dad. I checked out the tourist spots. You know you are in tourist territory in Wisconsin when you can buy plaques with Chicago Bears insignia on them less than fifty miles from where the Green Bay Packers rule.
On our return home, we concentrated on playing “Find the Barn” and “Count the Cows” with my daughter through a forest of blazing fall colors dotted with farms.My husband left before me to go to a meeting and arranged for the spouse of one of his colleagues to drive me and my daughter to Door County. I chatted about raising children and the fish boil that we were supposed to attend once we arrived.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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