24 More Days before I leave for Wisconsin and "The Lake"

After reading Lesson 8 and Lesson 9 in How To Talk Minnesotan....A Visitor's Guide, I decided to skip all but a slight mention of them in my blog today.

Lesson 8 deals with the subject of Lutefisk. The definition of lutefisk in Howard Mohr's book is: "a translucent, rubbery food product with profound odor, created by soaking dried cod in a solution of lye, although equivalent results are claimed for doing the same to gym socks." Hey! I've eaten this stuff....it wasn't all that bad. Of course, if you've read my past blogs, I've eaten all kinds of stuff that you'd all think was pretty gross. Additionally, I'm mostly German so I didn't have as much contact with lutefisk as some of my neighbors who can claim Norwegian ancestry. I also should mention that Everclear (a 100 proof alcohol) is often served at the same time you might be served lutefisk. After drinking Everclear, it is doubtful that you would even remember anything that you had eaten. The lesson continues with the following.

"It's debatable whether lutefisk really belongs in the food section of this guide. Lutefisk is sold by the ton as food in Minnesota stores, sure, but we don't eat it all that much. It's mainly brought home for its humor potential. Things that smell can of course be funny."

I did feel like I had to pass along the following joke.

~ Did you hear about the Minnesotan who put lutefisk in his hatband to keep the mosquitoes away? It worked. He wasn't bothered by mosquitoes, but a herd of Norwegians ambushed him and boiled his hat for supper.

Since Lesson 9 dealt with poetry and bullheads in Minnesota. Since there was not one single poem provided in the chapter for me to pass on to you I'll skip right on to the bullheads even though Howard Mohr writes, "Although it is known as the land of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota has more poets than it does lakes and more gophers then it does poets."

"There are more northerns than walleyes in the lakes. There are more bullheads then the total of northerns, walleyes, gophers, and poets. Bullheads appear to be outnumbered by carp, but carp have an obsession with being seen. Walleyes make better eating than northerns, but bullheads are easier to catch. Carp are easiet to catch, because they swim on the surface and have a romantic notion about mortality. It is illegal to throw a carp back into the water. Most people throw them on the shore. If you step on a rotten carp you never forget it."

I'm not going to go over the cleaning of a bullhead. It becomes too graphic for those who have never cleaned a fish before. I've noticed that my daughters, son, and husband will often "disappear" when this little chore becomes necessary. I'm not sure if this is because seeing me with a knife makes them all nervous or because they just don't want to help me clean the fish. I used to be sure of the later but now that I'm menopausal, I'm beginning to think it's the former.