We don’t have to like lutefisk, my mom explained to me one holiday season, because we are Swedish, not Norwegian.
Apparently I was inquiring about heritage food traditions and recoiling mildly at the local TV news, on which the newest kid reporter on its staff gets the job of tasting lutefisk – usually live, on air – at one of the many church celebrations featuring that, let’s call it “unique,” dish. They never really look thrilled. I don’t think any of them are Norwegian.
Being half Swedish, I should like pickled herring, of course, but I’m not fond of that, either, and though Mom secretly knew I should like it, she never pushed it on me. Basically she let me survive on peanut butter sandwiches until I expanded my culinary horizons outward to cheese sandwiches … and then left me alone until I went to France as a nanny and discovered the wide, wide world of great food. Heck, there I ate sheep brain … can’t be much different from lutefisk.
Back home with my world view of food, I’m more curious now about our heritage flavors. I have the good fortune of not knowing all the possible “old country” connections brought by my paternal half of the family, and so I really can adopt as “mine” anything that tickles my fancy.
In editing this issue, I’m pretty sure I discovered that I’m part Italian (have you tasted potica?), part Thunder Bay-an (Persians, anyone?) and definitely part Upper Peninsulan (pasties, Trenary toast and Yooper Bars … what’s not to like?).
In “A Taste of Home,” writer Molly Hoeg introduces us, or re-introduces us, to them all and adds what we need to know to send critical holiday care packages to our loved ones forced to live away from Lake Superior. I think I’ve added all of these to my wish list. We didn’t explore how to send lutefisk – good news for our loved ones and for the postal carrier.
In another holiday wish-list story, Kristina Bourne, writing for us for the first time, explores how to spend three great days in Duluth making memories by visiting “Bentleyville & Beyond.” Most of her suggestions work even for local aunties, borrowing some nieces and nephews to get in on the really fun stuff around the waterfront area.
Reading further in this issue, there is plenty to put the elves into overtime. We suggest regional children’s books and cookbooks that will make great gifts, ponder a weekend getaway at a Victorian mansion in Laurium, Michigan, and take a peek at the vibrant music scene in Thunder Bay, where almost every night you can enjoy a great local group on stage.
In “Skyward, A Focus Above the Waters,” photographer/astronomer Mike Shaw passes along some stellar tips about how best to capture the northern night sky. If you can’t manage the camera, just looking at his images reminds you to get out and look up.
In keeping with the warmth of the holidays, though, not everything here is for personal wish lists. Some of our stories instead inspire us to send good wishes for the service of others.
Managing Editor Bob Berg reminds us to “Remember These Names” about our local war heroes. Besides introducing us to the incredible service of these honorable people, he names some places to learn more about individuals who have sacrificed for our two countries.
Tom Pink shows us local heroes of another kind, in this case the U.P. residents who each year generously give or volunteer to provide free hospice care through the Hospice of the Eastern Upper Peninsula and its Bell Hospice House. Even without a big city population, the big hearts in these small towns work hard to help families through difficult times.
The lesson, then, is clear: Sure, a handful of Yooper Bars makes you feel like you’ve hit the chocolate lottery, but sharing them fills your heart in a most sweetly satisfying way.