Saint Patrick and Lutefisk

The coming of March reminds me that soon it will be St. Patricks Day! A yearly celebration with corned beef, cabbage and beer. We don't have a drop of Irish blood within us so why?  It seems what they say is true, "Everyone is Irish on St. Patricks Day". Being a proud Scandinavian, I cannot deny my own heritage so I thought there has to be a link with St Patrick that gives us a cause for celebration also.

 Our thing (God help us) is lutefisk. That slimy smelly lye-soaked cod that we Scandinavians love to hate. Well, some of us actually do like? it.  I just read an article that links us Scandinavians to St. Patrick. An obscure legend has it that St. Patrick gave us lutefisk!

No one knows for sure the origin of lutefisk. Both Norwegian and Swedish Americans claim it originated in "their" country. Although rarely eaten in Scandinavia today, lutefisk dinners are all the rage in the church basements and Scandinavian heritage clubs of the Midwest. Maybe lutefisk, love it or hate it,  binds us culturally and reminds us who we are and where we came from.

So back to St. Patrick.
One of the legends is that St. Patrick invented lutefisk in an attempt to poison Viking raiders in Ireland with the lye-soaked fish. But did it kill our tough Viking ancestors? No!!!  Instead they loved it and declared it a delicacy! I am sticking with this cool story, never mind the fact that St. Patrick lived centuries before the Vikings attacked and plundered Ireland.

So in honor of St. Patrick, who gave us lutefisk;

 I am still going with the traditional corned beef and cabbage, however. I HATE Lutefisk.

Click the link below for that interesting article which tells all about lutefisk

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Scandinavians’ Strange Holiday Lutefisk Tradition:
People in the Old Country won’t touch the stuff, but immigrants
to the American Midwest have celebrated it for generations