Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds, and it's definitely an authentic Scandinavian food. Swedes eat it around Christmas time, so I hear. I had the honor of preparing it for a holiday party once. If anyone is interested, here is a recipe. Different families prepare it different ways, but this one comes to us courtesy of my girlfriend's grandmother, who is Swedish. Authenticity Guaranteed.
First of all, lutefisk may not be available in your area. There's a small import store, "Cheese N Stuff", here in Phoenix, which carries it in the winter. It came in a 1.5 pound block in a bag, frozen. The following instructions are
deceptively simple. Allocate 2 hours for preparing it, after the soaking part, that is.
- Put the lutefisk in the sink in a bowl. Run water over it for at least 48 hours to rinse away all the lye. Some lutefisk purports to come "pre-soaked", but I'd rather not risk my life on advertising buzzwords. If you were to eat lutefisk straight out of the package, with no soaking, you could die.
- Pour out the excess water from the bowl. Begin tearing the fish flesh away from the horrible rubbery skin. Remove any and all bones. Yes, it's supposed to look like that. Yes, you will have to throw away what looks like a substantial amount of fish that simply won't come off the skin. Someone suggested I should use a knife, but I doubt I would still be alive today if I had followed that advice.
- If you have a pile of what looks vaguely like grapefruit pulp in the bowl, and crap all over your hands, arms, front, and kitchen counter and floor, you're done. Throw the skin away, unless you want to use it for practical jokes -- in which case, may God have mercy on your soul.
- Peel and cube six or seven potatoes. The number of potatoes can be adjusted to fit the number of people you plan to serve.
- Put the potatoes in the bottom of a greased baking pan. Spread the lutefisk on top, using a rubber spatula.
- Add about half a cup of water to the pan.
- Bake at 350, 400 F for about an hour. Check it occasionally to make sure the potatoes aren't scorching.
Serve with white sauce and top with allspice. When I finally got around to trying it, I couldn't actually taste it, having wallowed in shredded fish for hours already that afternoon.
Of course, there are many ways to make lutefisk, and this is only one. In case you were wondering, lut is Svenska for "lye", and fisk means "fish" (the spelling "lutefisk" is Norwegian, the actual Swedish spelling would be "lutfisk"). God Jul!