[Sca-cooks] Lutefisk and strange dreams...

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net> wrote:

> 
> Well, I'm a fish fan, let's get together and experiment some time.  First we
> get you to sit down, really get into your childhood state of mind and recall
> everything you remember about your grandmother's original.  Depending if
> your mother is awake and if you're talking about her mother, maybe she can
> help with whatever she remembers too.  Every little bit helps.

I have learned a few of my grandma's recipes from my mom.  But I have asked
her about the rollmops, long before Mom had her stroke.  She never learned
to make them because she didn't like them, so she never paid attention to
how Grandma made them. :-(
> 
> I did make the effort in my 20's to collect family recipes from my mother,
> even a few from my father [O that Cioppino!] and although they happen to be
> alive and well today, I'm glad I did.  My grandmother was easier:  I knew
> which cookbooks she used.  [JEWISH COOKERY by Leah Leonard for the cheese
> blintzes and the good ol' SETTLEMENT COOK BOOK for the sugar cookies, if
> anybody cares.]

Yay!  My mom had started to make a recipe book of _her_ favorite recipes so I 
have that, and in her own handwriting.  Unfortunately, because of her poor 
education, my grandma rarely used printed recipes and never wrote anything
down.  My great-grandfather thought he was being very liberal in allowing 
his daughters to learn to read and write, but that was it.  I believe that
Grandma went to school for only three years before it was decided she was
needed more on the farm and to help her mother...
> 
> Meanwhile, back on topic... Tryggve was the only one who really regretted
> not having real lutefisk, that I know of anyway.  I told him more recently,
> he could get it at IKEA near the holidays.  That made him happy.

There were a couple of others who told me that they were disappointed, not because
they loved lutefisk, but because they had never had it and wanted to try it.

> 
> I did make real picked herring for the Angels Twelfth Night several years
> ago, the one with the Russian course for starters.  Almost all of it came
> back.  I admit to being a bit disappointed but not truly surprised.

I wish I had been at that event.  But, alas, it wasn't to be...  If I had been
there, I can guarantee that very little would have returned.  I probably would
have rolled out of that event full of pickled fishy goodness...

But it is amazing what little it takes to turn a group off a dish.  At that
Coronation, where I was elevated, I served a wonderful mushroom dish, which was
called in the original recipe, "Funges".  I used that name on the menu.  I was
told by several that people turned up their noses at just the word and wouldn't
try any of it.  Those same people told me that that meant that they ate their
fill of the dish and loved it.  I remember Lady Luxandra especially raving about
it and how she cleaned up the serving dish and that from a neighboring table...

Huette

Remember that while money talks, chocolate sings.

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