Lutefisk: National Dish Or Prank On Journalists?

LILLEHAMMER, Norway - Today, in our continuing cultural coverage of Those Wacky Norwegians, we present: lutefisk.

Lutefisk (pronounced "lutefisk") is the semiofficial national dish of Norway. This is somewhat ironic, because most people hate it. Even travel guidebooks, which always put the best possible spin on everything ("Between mortar rounds, Sarajevo offers the enterprising visitor much to . . .") tend to describe lutefisk with words such as "repugnant."

I asked a number of Norwegians what it was like, and the most complimentary response I got was: "It is very strong."

The recipe for lutefisk basically consists of taking a codfish and soaking it in - I am not making this up - lye. I have no idea how this got started. You don't think of lye as a common cooking ingredient ("Honey, could you run down to the 7-Eleven and pick me up quart of lye?").

Nevertheless, I am a journalist, and I feel that I have a constitutional responsibility - and here I will quote directly from the First Amendment - "to report on scary fish cuisine." So I asked Sissel Karlsen, a Norwegian who works in the Olympic press center, to set up a Lutefisk Expedition for a group of dedicated journalists at a local restaurant. This was not easy, because Lillehammer is apparently in a Lutefisk-Free Zone; ours had to be flown in from north Norway, apparently in its own private jet, because the per-journalist cost was over 400 kroners centigrade, which works out to something like $60, or possibly $3,450, depending on how skillfully we fill out our expense reports.

The restaurant employees brought us our lutefisk almost as soon as we sat down, as though they wanted to get it out of the kitchen. It has a jelly-like texture and is served in quivering white slabs, which contain many bones. It has a distinct aroma. Not quite as distinct as wolf urine, but definitely headed in that direction. It is served with a little gravy boat filled with little pieces of crisp bacon floating in bacon grease. The idea is, you ladle a nice big glob of grease onto your lutefisk, and then, when nobody is looking, you sprint out of the restaurant and find a place that sells pizza.

No, that's what we felt like doing, but instead we tasted the lutefisk, and we were pleasantly surprised. Some of the comments I wrote down were:

-- "This is not totally terrible."

-- "I don't hate this."

-- "It sort of slimes down your throat."

-- "I have eaten worse things."

As we were eating, a tiny, pretty woman walked by, and we realized that she was Isabella Brasseur, a Canadian athlete who had just won a bronze medal in the pairs figure skating. Bill Alkofer, a photographer sitting at our table, leaped to his feet to get her autograph.

"Congratulations!" he said.

"Thank you," she said.

"Do you want some lutefisk?" he said. Mr. Suave.

"I already ate," she said, moving swiftly away.

We were astounded. Usually when you offer a woman some lutefisk, you can have your way with her.

Next to arrive at our table was the chef, whose name was Alf Johnny Eriksen (Sissel explained that in Norway, "Alf Johnny" is the equivalent of "Billy Bob").

"How do you like the lutefisk?" asked Alf Johnny.

"Best we've ever had!" we said. "Do many people order this?"

"No," he said. "You are the first."

Maybe it was all a prank. Maybe the Norwegians are just pretending that there's such a dish as "lutefisk," to see if any American journalists are stupid enough to believe them. Maybe they were watching us on hidden cameras and howling with Norwegian laughter ("They're EATING it! With BACON GREASE!!" "Unbelievable! Let's see if they'll eat these moose doots!").

Dave Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald.