My first encounter with 'Death in the Form of Fish' came at our annual Norwegian Christmas party, six years in the past.
The celebration took place in the basement of some shady building sometime in mid-December. The room was very cold, and filled with accented strangers who all wore sweaters and smelled like mushrooms. At last the talking ceased and dinner was served.
Fish.
Mary Hoblastad, a long time family friend, approached the table at which I was sitting and asked if I was going to eat anything. I stared down at the odoriferous goo on my plate, whose gelatinous texture and rancid oiliness rendered the whole creature completely inedible. I shook my head.
"You don't like fish?" she exclaimed wildly, attracting the attention of several suspicious old men passing by, plates loaded with cod, "And you call yourself Norsk! For shame!"
The situation was further worsened when I learned the history of the dish. It was a Scandinavian delicacy known as lutefisk - which means, literally, "cod soaked in plutonium."
I had given a report in Mrs. Powell's sixth grade class about Norway, and to the delight of the sick minded 12 year old boys I had mentioned the gross practices of harvesting the cod, wrapping it in toilet paper, greasing it in Vaseline and then burying it for several weeks to create lutefisk.
I had not cared to try it since.
Despite the fuss I made over the lutefisk- or perhaps because of it-I was persuaded to take one forkful. One bite, and that was all.
How to describe that first bite? It's a bit like describing passing a kidney stone. If you are talking to someone else who has lived through the experience, a nod will suffice to acknowledge your shared pain, but to explain it to the person who has not been there makes mere words seem inadequate to the task.
When I think of that fateful moment when the fork met my lips and the lutefisk touched my tongue, the phrases, "nauseating sordid gunk", "unimaginably horrific", and "lasting psychological damage" come to mind.
There is a reason why lutefisk is only eaten once a year: anything that has been soaked in chemicals and allowed to ferment should not be allowed to pass through the digestive system-- it does detrimental things to the body.
But these descriptions seem hollow compared to the actual experience, so I will have to resort to a recipe for a kind of metaphorical lutefisk to describe the experience.
First, take jet-puffed marshmallows made without any sugar, blend them together with overcooked Japanese noodles, some canola oil, and Parmesan cheese, then bathe the whole liberally in acetone. Let it marinate in cod liver oil for several days at room temperature. When it has achieved the appropriate consistency heat it to just above lukewarm, sprinkle in thousands of tiny, sharp, invisible fish bones, and serve. Voila! You have lutefisk, or at least a very close representation.
Now you can empathize.
And so if I ever create a ruckus over fish, you will know why. There is only one word to describe possibly the most abominable recipe created by mankind-- and it is lutefisk.
Viva la Norge!
