The Ghost of Norwegian Christmas Past

o lutefisk, o lutefisk, how fragrant your aroma

A mountain trail outside Bergen, Norway.

Hi friends—in honor of the holidays, today I’m bringing you a rewritten version of one of my favorite personal travel essays, which happens to be Christmas-themed. Enjoy!

It was a drizzly night in Bergen—the sort where rain and mist converge and make you wonder if the earth will ever be dry again—and I had found myself in a traditional Norwegian restaurant against my better judgment. My husband, Nick, had been set on trying the local fare despite my many warnings about it, so we’d ducked into an ancient-looking clapboard building on the harbor.

By candlelight, I perused the menu, skimming past the whale steaks and boiled sheep’s heads. Then I spotted it: lutefisk.

The word stung. My grandmother, who had hair the color of moonlight and whose high Scandinavian cheekbones swallowed her eyes whenever she laughed, always told me she would take me here, to the motherland, if only I ate her godforsaken lutefisk.

I’d done it every Christmas, just like she asked. The word lutefisk, to me, spoke of broken promises.

My grandmother was a staunch traditionalist, and nothing brought out her fanaticism quite like our family’s Christmas Eve parties. There was an order of events that had to be observed, starting with entrances (as each family arrived at Grandma’s, they had to stand shivering on the porch while those who had gotten there earlier sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas) all the way through dessert (molasses cookies and peanut butter blossoms were non-negotiables).

The dinner menu had an almost religious importance. Every year, Grandma served all 30 of her progeny the same Norwegian poor man’s meal our forebears had eaten since settling the Minnesota Territory. She wanted to make us hearty like they were, and to remind us where we came from—which is to say that our Christmas dinners were not meant to be enjoyed, but rather to build character. And uff da (as they say in the Upper Midwest) did that meal ever build character. It was completely unseasoned and one hundred percent beige, a sad mess of boiled potatoes, creamed corn, and cold lefse.

But the lutefisk was the coup de grâce. Where do I begin to describe the culinary atrocity that is lutefisk? It’s a skinned, deboned filet of cod, which, after being soaked in lye for a year, becomes a pile of translucent, gelatinous flesh, like a seafood Jell-O. Lutefisk has no real flavor aside from a vague fishiness, but what it lacks in taste it more than makes up for in smell. It used to stink up Grandma’s house for days, and it would jiggle on the platter as she paraded it to the dinner table, at which time we were all obliged to sing O Lutefisk (to the tune of O Christmas Tree):

O Lutefisk, O Lutefisk, how fragrant your aroma,
O Lutefisk, O Lutefisk, you put me in a coma.
You smell so strong, you look like glue,
You taste just like an overshoe,
But lutefisk, come Saturday,
I think I’ll eat you anyway.

“One day,” Grandma would say each year, “I’m going to take you all to Norway, but only the ones who eat their lutefisk.”

I wanted so much to be a good little Norwegian girl for my grandmother, and I loved the idea of seeing Norway even more than I hated lutefisk, so I would do my duty with the tiniest speck of fish I could manage. I would inevitably gag and spit the first morsel into my napkin, but then I’d grit my teeth, take a second forkful, and swallow as fast as I could without chewing. This is who you are, I told myself. This is how you get to Norway.

We never made it to Norway together, even though I dutifully took my medicine every year, right up until she died.

There was no lutefisk on the table the following Christmas. It vanished with her, as if a spell had been broken.

“So, are you going to have some?” Nick joked at our candlelit table in Bergen.

I considered it for a moment. Could I conjure my grandmother from a plate of stinking cod?

I closed my menu. “I think I’ve paid my dues,” I said. “I want to eat something Norwegian and enjoy it for once.”

I asked for the grilled filet of reindeer. It came out steaming, and it was firm yet tender, like a prime cut of beef, juicy and perfectly charred, pink on the inside with just the right marbling of melty, buttery fat. The bed of asparagus was tender and well-salted, the lingonberry garnish a welcome dash of acidity. It couldn’t have been less reminiscent of lutefisk. I nearly licked my plate.

“I see you didn’t like it.” The waitress deadpanned when she came to clear the table.

Then she cracked a smile, her eyes disappearing beneath her high, plump cheeks. She had the same smile as another Norwegian I used to know—one whose hugs you could sink into like a goose down pillow, who used to rap, rap, rap her freshly-painted nails on the lacquered wood of her kitchen table, who could whip your tush at hearts, and who swaddled me as a newborn.

She never took me to Norway, yet there she was.

thanks for being here, and happy holidays!

Wishing you and yours a festive, restful, jubilant end to 2024 (am I the only one who feels like this year is never-ending??). I’ll see you in the new year—until then, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

See you for our next adventure,
Sam