Celebrating Christmas the Norwegian way

Now that I am exploring the culture of my mom’s Norwegian maternal grandparents, I am learning more about their native country’s traditions. I have discovered that it is a Norwegian custom to celebrate Christ’s birth on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day just like my mother’s family did when she was growing up. She carried on that tradition with our family and we went to my Italian grandmother’s house for pasta and meatballs the next day.

Although my Norwegian grandma liked pickled beets, another Norwegian trait, I don’t remember her making lefse. My mom made it a few times when we had leftover mashed potatoes, but that was the extent of our Norwegian culture until we became charter members of Daughters of Norway (DON) Hulda Garborg Lodge #49 based in Rainbow.

Our lodge sisters enjoy sharing their family traditions. At our Nov. 13 meeting, Janna Armbruster brought her recipe for lefse which included cooked potatoes, butter, margarine, salt, half and half and flour. With already made dough, she demonstrated how to roll it out and cook it so we could do it too and have fresh lefse with our Nordic potluck lunch.

Armbruster, a Fallbrook resident, makes lots of lefse for her relatives this time of year but, for her, cookies are an even bigger part of the holidays. She remembered that her mother and aunts made a lot of cookies, “They made spritz, jingle bells, raisin, chocolate drop pecan balls and fattigman (twisted dough deep fried). They also did krumkaker (cone-shaped) and sugar cookies…The aroma of all that baking stays with me today and if any of those cookies are baking anywhere I happen to be, waves of nostalgia roll over me and all of those great memories are revived.”

A different culinary holiday tradition for many Norwegians is eating lutefisk which is dried cod soaked in lye to preserve it, then rinsed repeatedly before being cooked. It is a delicacy in Norway which might explain why it is popular here in Nordic communities despite the fact that most people don’t like the taste of it.

Sons of Norway (SON) Vinland Lodge #6-159, based in Temecula, hosted a Lutefisk & Meatball Dinner on Nov. 20 at the Rainbow Valley Grange hall. Professional chef Stein Amland, a native Norwegian, cooked the dinner; he has prepared lutefisk dinners for lodges all over Southern California. Fifty-five people attended this dinner, with four of them coming all the way from Orange County.

Even though I don’t like most fish, I did taste the lutefisk. I did not care for it, but it really didn’t taste nasty. The dinner also included meatballs, boiled potatoes and split peas. I don’t usually like cooked peas either, but the mashed peas with bacon were pretty tasty.

Lake Elsinore resident Berit Austin Funnemark, a member of both Vinland and Hulda Garborg lodges and a native Norwegian, said her family did not eat lutefisk for the holidays but had pork roast instead, with lingonberries, surkål (like sauerkraut), and boiled potatoes followed by rice cream with fruit sauce for dessert. She added, “It all depends on where in Norway you are from. We never had lefse for the holidays. My family had to have at least seven different cookies for the holidays, and we [had] julekake.”

Like Funnemark, Lynne Bradley of Fallbrook also belongs to both SON and DON lodges. Bradley’s memories of growing up include her grandmother and aunt coming for Christmas Day every year bringing boxes and boxes of cookies. She said, “The spritz literally melted in your mouth. I also remember decorating the tree with paper ornaments along with at least a couple of strings of Norwegian flags. Later, Mom started making lefse, which we always ate with butter and brown sugar.”

Bradley has started a Scandinavian women’s choir or Damekor. Among the events at which they have sung was the House of Pacific Relations’ (HPR) International Christmas Festival at Balboa Park December Nights on Dec. 3. They performed Christmas songs in Norwegian and English, right after a flamenco group from the House of Spain, and right before the House of Italy’s tenor.

A big part of the event was the food sold at the international cottages. Long lines of people waited to try a variety of cuisines including the House of Norway’s Viking pea soup or waffle with sour cream and jam, and the House of Sweden’s Swedish meatball plate with limpa

bread and cucumbers.

Since holidays are a time for traditional family foods, I ended up having a meatball sandwich from the House of Italy. I like Swedish meatballs too and have discovered that some foods are common in many cultures. The fattigman, for instance, is very similar to one of the cookies my Italian grandmother made every Christmas, and lefse is just a tortilla made with potatoes.

As it turns out, the holidays are a good time to experience the cultural traditions of not just Norway

but all countries.

The International Cottages at Balboa Park are open every Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. for anyone who wants to explore the world from close by. For more information on HPR, call (619) 234-0739 or visit http://www.sdhpr, for Hulda Garborg Lodge, call (760) 645-3344 or visit http://www.daughtersofnorway.org; for Vinland Lodge, call (951) 678-2462 or visit http://vinlandlodge.alfpettersen.com.

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