I love ethnic food. The places that I have lived and worked have been multicultural, and I have sampled the favorite dishes of Korea, Africa, the Philipines, Greece, Thailand and India, just to name a few. The favorite food of our ancestry is the soul food of our existence. I am therefore quite ashamed to admit that I do not like the soul food of my own Scandinavian heritage: Lutefisk. I hope that my Minnesota friends bear with me while I explain this dish to my readers south of the Mason-Dixon line: Lutefisk is a Swedish and Norwegian delicacy in which a perfectly good fillet of cod is and preserved in lye and dried. It is then reconstituted, rinsed and simmered and/or baked. Traditionally, it is served with boiled potatoes, cream sauce, and butter. Everything on the plate is white. Legend has it that during the summer feasts of long ago, the odor of simmering lutefisk drove the grasshoppers out of Norway and across the border to Finland, where a young man named Urho had to get rid of them. (Urho is another story altogether.) If you want to know the taste and consistency of lutefisk, just open a can of salmon mousse cat food and leave it out in the sun for a few days, then take a big spoonful. Or not.
Not to be outdone by the north, one of the southern soul foods is chitterlings, or chitlins. I was anxious to try them, since I love ethnic food so much and I heard that they were delicious. My friends explained that you had to trust the person that fixed them, as they had to be cleaned carefully. Chitlins are pig intestines, simmered, served with hog maws (part of the stomach) and boiled rice. Everything on the plate is white. Cooking them outside is suggested, as some people find the odor of cooking chitlins to be offensive. It is. I suspect that years ago, cooking them outdoors caused the grasshoppers to leave the southern United States and fly across the ocean to Finland. If you would like to know the taste and consistency, it is exactly as it sounds: simmered pig intestines. I think there was some sort of spice added, but didn’t dare ask. The rice, which looked suspiciously like it was covered in butter and cream sauce, tasted like simmered pig intestines. The maws? Let’s not go there.
I am now ready to try my next soul food adventure. I hear there is a wonderful stew from Finland made from fish heads called “Kalamojakka” which loosely translated means “Urho’s Revenge”.
The Minnesota Farm Woman 
How funny!!!! I laughed my head off. Never had the experience of of chitlins, but do have fond memories of lutefisk Christmases past. I felt as if I was being punished and put to bed with only potatoes and butter for dinner. I always thought that maybe a lump of coal in my stocking would follow!!!!
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Did you get the parental “just one bite?”. I couldn’t stomach it. We did get some fried fish to go along with our potatoes and butter.
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Yes, every year. “Try it, you’ll like it!” Who could get past the stench? I would get to have potato sausage sometimes. Didn’t add much color to the plate, but adding a bunch of ketchup helped.
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I don´t like lutfisk either. It tastes nothing! But it´s tradition here in Scandinavia at Christmas. No lutfisk, no Christmas, some people think. But I think younger people don´t like it.
A fish with much taste and much more smell is “surströmming”. It´s rotten fish eaten in Sweden mostly in August. I havn´t tried it but I have heard much about the bad smell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming
At Eastern we have “memma” on the table. It´s not my first choice so I leave it to other people to eat it with with cream and sugar. It another tradition at Eastern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A4mmi
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I will have to try surstromming some day. Somehow, memma sounds and looks familiar. Perhaps I had it long ago at my grandmother’s house. Thank you for your comments!
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After being in this part of the country for many years, I finally tried Lutefisk about 10 years ago and it has grown on me. I try to have it once a year at Christmastime when it is being served at various establishments. Also, Kalamojakka is a wonderful dish and not at all like lutefisk. Really a fish chowder.
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I do love the kalamohakka, unless it is made with the fish heads! I can’t get past those…..
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Brilliant – same dish as French andouillettes, just different name! I do feel it is great that nothing went to waste (we are too wasteful today for sure), but I struggle!
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I love kalamojakka! My grandma used to make it all the time, but never since my grandpa died. Turns out we were the only two who really liked it. Everyone else prefers lihamojakka.
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Now it’s you’re turn….:)
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Lifetime Mississippian here, and I wouldn’t touch chittlins with a ten-foot pole….
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Hahahaha! Well, that was my first and only experience with them. The more I chewed, the bigger they got!!
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Chris
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