Lutefisk Church Dinners in Wisconsin

Vermont Lutheran's Annual Lutefisk Dinner — Black Earth WI

On the third Saturday of October lutefisk lovers flock to Black Earth for what many consider the best dinner in south-central Wisconsin. As they have for years, volunteers at Vermont Lutheran Church prepare over half a ton of cured codfish as well as many meatballs, plenty of potatoes and lots of lefse.





Back in the graveyard the soaked lutefisk gets hosed down before cooking.



Circles of lefse are formed using these specialized rolling pins and carefully chosen cloths (heavyweight Amish denim is preferred).



Old-fashioned egg coffee is made by mixing a couple eggs, shells and all, into ground coffee which gets boiled in these old pots. Very good coffee, by the way.





The star of the show. Several heaping platters of lutefisk were demolished by our table of ten. I was amazed at the quantity some guests were able to put away.



Meatballs were also available as well as boiled potatoes, green beans, an excellent cranberry sauce, lefse and pitchers of melted butter. Pour it on until pools form on the plate . . . then you're ready to eat!



What's the perfect dessert to follow all that butter? That's right, rømmegrøt, a sour cream pudding swimming in more butter. A small bowl of this stuff nearly did me in.



And of course a platter of butter cookies. Some seriously talented bakers were at work here. That coffee was an absolute necessity at this point.



I've eaten lutefisk a number of times (mostly in Seattle) but never particularly enjoyed it. This was by far the best I've had. I never thought I'd say it but I wouldn't mind trying another lutefisk dinner before the season ends. Here's a list of this year's dinners.

Vermont Lutheran Church
9886 Vermont Church Rd
Black Earth WI
608-767-3312
http://www.vermontlutheran.org/

Rene G wrote:Back in the graveyard the soaked lutefisk gets hosed down before cooking.

If a Scandinavian-American Food Photography Hall of Fame is ever established, this image belongs at the entrance.

TIS, 1/8 Swedish and 1/8 Norwegian

Thank you for the Post Lutefisk Dinner Post!
I'm not sorry that I was not informed Pre-Dinner but after some spectacular awful experiences I will try this Dinner next year.
MY first experience was as a Graduate Student living at Eagle Heights, Married Graduate student housing for the University of Wisconsin Madison. We shopped in Shorewood, a well to do part of Madison contiguous with Eagle Heights. I purchased a package of Lutefisk, curious as to what it was all about. My wife tried to prepare it according to the directons, utter disaster and it has been that way for all these years.
I guess we should have traveled the short distance to Black Earth!-Dick

That platter of cookies took me back over 40 years! My mom used to make many of those and she had the special iron to make the rosette and butterfly shaped ones. I think I have that iron yet! She would lightly sprinkle powered sugar on them. She passed 35 years ago so all that talent is long lost. Great report Rene, thank you!

Great post! I am rather partial to lutefisk and would love to attend this event but... I'm afraid all that butter might send me and my gallbladder to the hospital forthwith!...

A

Rene G wrote:Meatballs were also available as well as boiled potatoes, green beans, an excellent cranberry sauce, lefse and pitchers of melted butter. Pour it on until pools form on the plate . . . then you're ready to eat!

Cranberries and not lingonberries? Shameful! These people have "gone native" and forgotten their Swedish-Norwegian roots.

HI,

Please note these lutefisk dinners sell out in advance. For this dinner, your tickets and preferred time slots had to be in by October 12th. They began at 11:00 am with the last seating at 6:00 pm in 20 minute intervals roughly. When we arrived, they were behind by 50 minutes.

We were fortunate to be seated with a lutefisk aficionado who had two more dinners lined up. He even suggested there was yet another lutefisk dinner even better than this. His preferred style was to arrange lutefisk and fork-mashed potatoes onto a lefse, then roll it up like a cone and pour melted butter inside. According to the placemat our new friend's style was favored by children.

Some lutefisk dinners serve rutabaga and others offer mashed potatoes instead of boiled.

It was definitely worth the five hour round trip to partake in this event.

Regards,

Uff-da!

I'm all envious of this trip, you guys! Not that lutefisk is one of my favorite things. Doesn't compare to raccoon, for instance. But kudos to you for finding the thing. Excellent reportage!

Hi- THere is no cream sauce for the lutefisk and boiled potatoes? I have had lots of lukefisk dinners, and I've always had them with cream sauce instead of butter. You then put lots of black pepper on the lutefisk. Lutefisk does not have a lot of flavor to it, and so you kind of need the white sauce and pepper to make it edible. My mother was born in Sweden, and so I had a lot of lutefisk dinners on Christmas eve at my grandparents house. I also helped out at one lutefisk dinner at a church in Detroit in the 80's along with one of my sisters. Since we helped out, we got to eat for free. I remember they had this polka band performing there that was just awful. I am sure that this particular church has not had a lutefisk dinner in years.

I am a fan of Prairie Home Companion, and in Garrison's News from Lake Wobegon recently, Garrison announced that Lake Wobegon Lutheran church was going to cancel their lutefisk dinner and just have a meatball dinner instead. The reason being that the person that used to fix the lutefisk, moved to Florida, and didn't teach anybody how to cook it. The lutefisk that the other church members made last year was awful. Hope this helps, Nancy

If I only worked for South Dakota magazine, I could enjoy a lutefisk office party.

Some people have all the luck!

Regards,

South Dakota magazine has a slide show showing how to make lefse.

Cathy,

you might appreciate this. At a function for my son where we were asked to being in a dish, I volunteered to being in lutefisk.
The literal screams of "NO!" from the other parents was really funny.

exvaxman wrote:Cathy,

you might appreciate this. At a function for my son where we were asked to being in a dish, I volunteered to being in lutefisk.
The literal screams of "NO!" from the other parents was really funny.

I think its reputation is worse than its texture and taste!

Regards,

Well-made lutefisk is a thing of beauty. My father got the last 1-2 pounds of it from the local grocery store, so we were able to have some for Christmas. That little bit was not nearly enough to satisfy the 4 lutefisk eaters in a crowd.

To make matters worse, Dad was out of allspice. We should've followed the example of my Swedish great-grandmother, who always carried a tin of allspice with her so that she was prepared in case of lutefisk emergency. Next year, I will remember.

Lutefisk Emergency is my band name for the week.

Welcome to the board, marindahl... we should al be so well-prepared as your great-grandmother

Hi-A lot of people who hate lutefisk, have had badly prepared lutefisk. I don't love it, but if it correctly prepared, and you add lots of white sauce and salt and pepper, it is definitely edible. I would just not drive 100 miles to attend a lutefisk dinner, like some people here would. A few months ago I was watching the show Bizarre Foods on the Travel channel, and the guy who hosts the program tried lutefisk, and thought it was gross. Maybe he got a incorrectly prepared natch of lutefisk. When my Swedish mother who loved lutefisk died though, I polled the family to see if anybody wanted me to bring some lutefisk home for Christmas, and they all said no.

We're well into lutefisk season and many of Wisconsin's church dinners have already taken place but there's still time for fans of lye-cured codfish. Last year I posted a report on a lutefisk dinner in Black Earth, Wisconsin. Here's a short recap of one a couple weeks ago in DeForest, a town of 9000 just north of Madison. Like many of these dinners, it serves as a social event and fundraiser for the town's Lutheran church.







The meal was served family style, with platters continually replenished. Nobody goes away hungry at these dinners. I was astonished at the quantity of lutefisk some of my tablemates were able to pack away. A 91-year-old woman across from me took care of at least a pound and a half (and her son accounted for considerably more). I think you can always count on lutefisk, meatballs, potatoes, lefse and rivers of melted butter but the other accompaniments vary. Here we were served mashed rutabagas and cole slaw, both very welcome.





No rømmegrøt or Scandinavian cookies in DeForest, only a choice of pies. That slice of mixed fruit pie was a very fine example.

Overall, I'd give the edge to Black Earth but nonetheless the DeForest dinner can easily be recommended. There are still plenty of upcoming dinners to choose from (see the impressive list at Lutfisk Lovers' Lifeline), even a few in the new year. Here are flyers for two dinners not far from Chicago that I happened to see.



Christ Lutheran Church
220 S Main St
DeForest WI
http://www.christlutherandeforest.org/

Thanks to the above Posted flyer, I made reservations for my wife and I for Noon today.
It's about a 1.5hr drive from Kenosha County for us.
Seating is communal style when they have enough people for a full table.
You get everything except the Lutefisk and desserts buffet style.
Lutefisk comes on large platters straight from the kitchen.
Fellow diners suggested, butter, salt pepper for the Lutefisk. Brown mustard is available table side.
The Lutefisk benefited from all!
Many years ago when living in Madison, we tried to make Lutefisk with unsatisfactory results so I have been wanting to try Lutefisk again made correctly. Now there still is the strange consistency and just a hint of ammonia to deal with from time to time but on the whole the Lutefisk was good.
Everything else was very good especially the deserts.








-Dick

From the Journal Sentinal online
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/ ... tml?ipad=y