What to eat, and not eat, during the hoidays...

My sylta, enjoyed by dipping
 chunks in a bowl of white vinegar

Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune 12/7/24

Here they are, the holidays. They mean so much to so many people with fond memories of Christmases past as they anticipate Christmas present (and presents).

Food is a big part of holiday celebrations. There are so many dishes that are exclusive to the holidays, many of them reflecting the ethnic backgrounds of the participants.

That’s the case with me, for sure. A significant part of my ethnic heritage is Swedish, on my mother’s side, and she always prepared some foods associated with the home country of her parents.

Of course, the mind immediately turns to fabled lutefisk at times like this. We had it every holiday season, but not on Christmas itself. She wouldn’t dare. Roast turkey was the main menu item on Christmas in our home just as it was and is in many others.

I’m not going to visit lutefisk today; it gets so much ridicule each year I think people are getting as tired of hearing about it as they are of eating it. Codfish soaked in lye are not my idea of edible repast.

Then there’s “fruitcake,” baked and served in my growing-up home. I hate to use the word abominable to describe it because it’s an effort to spell, but there it is. You can interpret the expression “nutty as a fruitcake” as you choose. And don’t get me started on “lefse” or “kaldolmar” (cabbage rolls). Don’t worry. 

No, today I am going to address something the Swedes (Norwegians too) call sylta. (Warning: Never name a newborn girl Sylta.)

The real “Scandahoovian” aficionados call sylta “head cheese.” This is because REAL sylta, old country sylta, was made from parts of calves, pigs and sheep that cannot be made into ribs, chops or roasts but the early “cooks” didn’t want any part of the late animal to go to waste.

The solution: Use parts of the head. (Are you getting hungry yet?) As a youngster being taught the “facts” of life I thought that among these parts of the animals’ heads meant what is loosely called the “brain.” In fact, I believed that until recently. But research has shown that the brain was usually not involved when preparing sylta, AKA head cheese.

What a relief. But research has also shown that parts of the head in early sylta vary, with one source saying this might include tongue but not eyes or ears. Yippee! Hold it. Tongue? Hmmm.

Well anyway, apparently they mix it all together, throw in copious amounts of gelatin, onions and other culinary detritus, form loaves and call it sylta.

Now on to the important part of this narrative: Many of our Duluth grocery stores sell sylta at this time of the year. But do not despair, it contains no parts of the head. The sylta I bought recently simply lists “pork, water, gelatin, onions, celery, salt, all-spice and white pepper.” And I love it.

Actually the “inspiration” for visiting this subject today was a recent encounter with a check-out person at one of our fine supermarkets. Among my purchases was a small brick of sylta, and as the worker checked it though the scanner, he looked me in the eye and asked, “What is sylta?”

I was surprised that anyone in this part of the country had never even heard of sylta. One time in the past, as I was checking out some sylta in the store, the clerk took one look at it and said “yuck.”

In the recent encounter, I answered the check-out clerk in the briefest possible way by simply saying, “It’s a Scandinavian holiday delicacy,” He nodded and went on with his business.

I didn’t mention to him that it’s also known as head cheese. I didn’t include reputed ingredients of the past like maybe brains, but not eyes, ears and tongue. There is also mention of “feet” in some descriptions but I don’t know if I believe that. Feet are a long way from the head, we all know.

For the record, I love modern sylta sold in stores. Cheese-size slices soaked in white vinegar and served aboard a cracker are a rare delicacy only at holiday time. Enjoy or yuck, depending on your preference.

Well, this is my final column of 2024, so I wish readers a happy (even merry) holiday (as they say in Sweden, “God Jul”) and extend best wishes for 2025. I’ll be back in January, hoping for the best.

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

Let's get that A out of lutAfisk...

Lutefisk serving, courtesy of Wikipedia

Written by By Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune/12-10-22

Well, the holidays have arrived, ready or not. I like the holidays but there are, of course, problems with them.

I’m not talking about how busy they increasingly become, or how expensive they can be, or how much weight we can gain eating all of those holiday goodies. I’m talking about a problem largely unique to people living in areas populated by ancestors who hailed from Scandinavian countries. Like around here. Like me.

 

Oh, I know Finland and Denmark are Scandinavian countries, along with Sweden and Norway, in the minds of most, but my research has shown that Denmark is really sort of Germanish. (I had a grandmother from a far northern German province and the family wasn’t sure if she was German or Danish, depending on the direction of the 20th Century’s two major world wars, labeled I and II to tell them apart.)

 

I read once that Finland was originally populated by ancient tribes hailing from east of their spot on the map, linking them more to the steppes of Central Asia, but they are part of Scandinavia in the minds of most and Helsinki sure felt like it when I visited there once. Oh, that gollamoijaka (or however it’s spelled).

 

It’s complicated, and why should we care? Well, one reason is that many of our holiday traditions are handed down through the generations going all the way back to the original immigrants from the various northern European countries who populated this region.

 

Which raises the problem of lutefisk. We all know that lutefisk, like fruitcake, can be a holiday joke wherever it is served, like in what used to be known as our “Upper Tri-State Region” where so many Scandinavians settled. This region also used to be known as the “Northwest” until somebody pointed out where Seattle is on the U.S. map. Oops, sorry.

 

But it is here in the upper U.S. that lutefisk is king, and considered either a delicacy or a joke. It was served each holiday season (but not ON Christmas) in my growing-up home by my Swedish-heritage mother. My father liked it, although he was not Scandinavian at all. He considered himself Irish although his mother was from either Germany or Denmark depending on those world wars. The Irish actually have a past in Lutefisk. More on that later.

 

I never cared for lutefisk. Too slimy for me. But at least I know how to pronounce its name, which is the problem I cite today after this long introduction.

 

I have noticed that many — actually most — people around here incorrectly call it luteAfisk when the subject comes up. They do this innocently with all good intentions and no malice toward lutefisk.

 

But it’s time now to correct this travesty. So once and for all, it’s lutefisk — two syllables. Not luteAfisk, with that rogue A inserted, bringing the name of the food way up to three syllables. So, let’s all start at least pronouncing it correctly, whether we like lutefisk or not.

 

Now back to the Irish involvement in lutefisk. There are many tales of how lutefisk was invented, most of them pointing out that up in Norway or over in Sweden many centuries ago somebody took cod fish, dried it out on wooden racks, soaked it in lye for many weeks, salted it down so the lye wouldn’t kill people and cooked it up in various LutAran churches — sans the meatballs.

 

Now we hear the tale that none other than Irish St. Patrick is credited with employing lutefisk to poison Vikings when they raided Ireland several centuries ago. Instead of going ahead and dying, the Vikings liked it, brought the idea back home and it became a holiday staple.

 

This history has been brought into question by Google, when it points out that St. Patrick was driving the grasshoppers from the Emerald Isle centuries before the Vikings raided. Details, details.

 

Well, that’s my treatise on lutefisk. Pronounce it correctly and enjoy it while (if?) you can because it disappears in a couple of weeks. So will sylta, my favorite Scandinavian delicacy. It used to be called “head cheese” because it was made out of the brains of whatever slaughtered animals were too stupid to avoid their fate. Those old Scandinavians were frugal folk and wasted not a thing.

 

They don’t make sylta out of brains anymore, though, and it’s starting to show up in education results. (Yes, I know, that’s as nutty as a fruitcake.)

 

Well anyway, Happy Holidays, in spite of all this.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.