Learning about Norwegian Culture in Minnesota with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Learning about Norwegian Culture in Minnesota with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

Fall colors convinced me to go along with my husband on a business trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota one weekend when we lived in Wisconsin.

While my husband worked, I drove around Lake Mille Lacs outside Minneapolis and visited all the small towns.  “Lake Mille Lacs” means “Lake One Thousand Lakes” and “Isle” means “Island.” 

The name Lake Mille Lacs refers to all the lakes in Minnesota that were created when the last glaciers retreated.   The license plates all said that there were 10,000 lakes in the state.  The mosquito was jokingly called the state bird on postcards.

A state park dedicated to Father Hennepin further attested to French exploration of this area.  The largest group of Europeans, though, who settled Minnesota are from the Scandinavian countries of Norway and Sweden.  The Objibway are the original inhabitants.

When I arrived in one small town, I immediately saw a little craft store that sold Norwegian items like tablecloths.  I decided to start my souvenir shopping at the hardware store, though, because that was the only place that was open.  I bought some fishing tackle for the fishermen in the family and started to look for some old-fashioned toys for my daughter.

The toys I found for my daughter included dominoes, white chalk, a pick-up sticks game, and a little handheld pinball game.  I loved getting things like this as a child and looked forward to sharing them with my little one.  

I would dole them out in two-week intervals so that each item would get her full attention.  I bought my mother a pretty flowered tablecloth for her kitchen table; small town hardware stores carry just about everything.

The Norwegian crafts store was now open, and I proceeded across the street.  I walked into a party happening at 10:00 am in this crafts store.  About fifteen Norwegian matrons were gathered around a “Congratulations” cake.  The elderly owner of the store was signing copies of her first book, which detailed her romance with the American who had brought her to Minnesota.

She invited me to have some cake and tea and asked where I was from.  I told her about my wanderings that had led me to Wisconsin.  She told me, “You should write a book, too!  Everyone’s life has drama in it.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I said.

She knew I was buying souvenirs for a child and let me purchase a book for my daughter.  I found a Scandinavian fairy tale called The Tomten and the Fox.  The tomtem looked like a Norwegian leprechaun, but instead of tricking people the tomtem helped them. 

 

In this story, the tomten protected the chickens from a wily fox for a family, who did not realize how hard the tomten worked.

The visit to the Norwegian craft store left me in high spirits.  The scenery was beautiful with the leaves turning golden, red, and brown as I drove back to the hotel.  I did want to write, but mostly I wanted to participate in wonderful moments in life like going to a 10 am book signing for a romance book.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Trying Norwegian Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Learning about Norwegian Food with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

"How do Norwegians make any money from their fundraising dinner when no one wants to eat the main dish?” I asked my mother during my first Wisconsin winter.  My question concerned lutefisk, dried salt cod reconstituted in lye that is boiled and steamed to make it palatable…supposedly. 

 

I knew that in its Italian form as codfish, you could fetch top dollar for this delicacy.  I wanted to see what the Norwegians did with codfish.

Lutefisk dinners are no small time affair.  One of our Lutheran churches in town served 2,500 meals in one day in well orchestrated shifts.  My great-aunt bought the family tickets to attend one of these events, because she was 104 and “not feeling like cooking this week.”  On the appointed day, we arrived at church.  Smiling ladies in starched white frocks with flower embroidery led us to our tables and served us.

The pale, white lutefisk flaked away and did not have much flavor; it tasted better with butter.  The Norwegians cook the fish outside in a hut, so the church will not have a fishy aroma.  I discovered that the older generation of Norwegians did eat lutefisk and enjoy it just like little my daughter.

We supplemented our token lutefisk portion with Swedish, or rather Norwegian, meatballs made from ground beef, pork, and veal and seasoned with meat sauce.  The pan gravy from the meatballs covered the boiled potatoes and went under the green beans.  Homemade, flat, tortilla-like sheets of potato bread called lefse accompanied our meal.

The lefse tasted good with cinnamon and sugar, but was merely a prelude to dessert.  We started out with a warm pudding called rommergrot made from cooking heavy cream, milk, and a little flour together.  Brown sugar tops off the rommergrot, but that is not the end of the Norwegian dessert fare we sampled.

Bonde Pike sounds like you should be eating another fish dish, but it is another delectable sweetie.  The church ladies make a crushed graham cracker shell for this dish, add a thickened cherry filling, and top it all off with whipping cream.

 
You do tend to put on a little weight during a Wisconsin winter supporting all the church fundraising efforts, but supporting the community in small town America certainly is tasty.

Lutefisk dinners form the backbone of winter entertainment small town Wisconsin.  Our little town newspaper had just run an article about the Sons of Norway going to net the year’s catch of lutefisk in the local river.  The spoof article heralded the new season of Lutefisk dinners organized by the local Lutheran Churches.

By Ruth Pennington Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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