Here, finally, is a report on my blog on the food of one of the most authentically “ethnic” immigrant groups in Minnesota: the Norwegians. Yes, it includes lutefisk which, after nine years in the state and many bad jokes, I ate for the first time last night and, to my surprise, rather liked. The meal also included Riskrem, Rømmegrøt and Rullepølse—no, these are not Norwegian death metal bands who play at the dinner, but things to eat—and a fair bit of pickled and marinated fish and a lot of things that involved a lot of cream. More on all that in a bit. First a little on where we ate this meal. 

“Scandinavian Buffet” is not the name of a restaurant in Northfield (a college town in southern Minnesota whose generally uninspiring food scene I’ve remarked before). It is the prosaic but very accurate title of an annual dinner put on by St. Olaf College in conjunction with their annual Christmas Festival. This Christmas Festival is a bit of a big deal in the region. St. Olaf, one of the two liberal arts colleges in town, has a well-regarded music program and their Christmas concert is a major local event. What they also have is much better food than the other college in town (Carleton); this despite sharing the same catering company: Bon Appetit. Over at Carleton the claim is mounted that the food is the same but no one who has eaten at both colleges would ever believe it. Suffice it to say that if this Scandinavian Buffet were being offered at Carleton we would not have eaten it; but the fact that it was offered at St. Olaf actually indicated that it would be of a high quality.

Christmas trees and decorations in the lobby of Buntrock Commons.

To be fair, St. Olaf takes its Scandinavian, specifically its Norwegian roots seriously. Named for the 11th century Norwegian king (and later, saint) the college was founded by Norwegian pastors and farmers in the late 19th century—themselves recent immigrants (and it should be said that Norwegian immigrants were not uniformly welcome in the region at the time). Southeast Minnesota was one of the early centers of Norwegian life in Minnesota (the first waves of Norwegian and other Scandinavian immigration started out in the eastern US in the early 19th century but later waves moved into the Upper Midwest); and many small towns here are still marked visibly by this history, even if only 16.5% of the state’s population claimed Norwegian ancestry in 2009. Norwegian names abound and many homes sport Norwegian flags outside them (something that unnerved me when we first moved to our town—at first glance I thought they were Confederate flags!); one of the bars in our town hosts regular gatherings of people playing Norwegian music.

(You will not be surprised to hear that nobody else in the area gets as exercised about these signs of immigrant cultural identity as they sometimes do about more recent arrivals.)

Anyway, St. Olaf is far more Scandinavian than Carleton. It’s also far more Christian. It is a Norwegian Lutheran college in more than just name (the campus is dry, for instance). This sort of thing is not unusual here: an hour to the west is another Scandinavian Lutheran college, Gustavus Adolphus (which unlike St. Olaf, is Swedish Lutheran) where students are required to take one class in Biblical and theological studies. Carleton is an altogether more secular college, with traditions grounded more in whimsy than religious history. As to whether this is why the food is worse there, I don’t know—I am constantly being told to not confuse correlation and causation.

A view of part of the dining hall.

On to the food! The Scandinavian Buffet is being put on this week in the hours leading up to the Christmas Festival concert. The main meal is in the Black and Gold Ballroom in the Buntrock Commons building and can be eaten there from 4-7 pm today and tomorrow and again for lunch from noon-2.30 on Sunday. We ate dinner last night, which was the opening night. Lines will be very long. We arrived at 5.20 and were seated at 6.05 (I’m told arriving right at the start is a good idea). Seating is at tables for eight and so if you are not in a group of eight you will have strangers seated with you. There were seven of us, and halfway through the meal an older gentleman dining alone was seated with us. This actually was a very good thing: he was a very convivial type and a font of knowledge on local history—and being of Norwegian extraction himself, his views on the qualities and variations of some of the dishes were interesting to hear (he pronounced the food, on the whole, a superior example of local Norwegian cuisine, and praised the lutefisk in particular).

What was on offer? So many exotic things devoid of the slightest hint of spice! On that note, I should say that our table raised the melanin count of the room dramatically; the missus, our brats and I were the only non-white diners in the time we were there; our table as a whole, until the late addition, also dramatically lowered the average age in the room and would have even if we didn’t have three small children with us. So, as I was saying, many things devoid of spice were on offer, but they were all pretty good. Here is the menu:

Scandinavian Buffet Menu
Cucumber Salad, Pickled Beets
Lefse with Butter and Cinnamon Sugar, Julekage
Gjetost, Jarlsberg and Tilsit Cheeses
Pickled Herring, Marinated Sardines, and Norwegian Gravlaks
Summer Sausage and Rullepølse
Maria-kjeks, Wasa Crisp, and Norwegian Brown Bread
Lutefisk with Drawn Butter and Cream Sauce
Apricot Stuffed Porkloin
Medisterkaker with Brown Sauce and Lingonberries
Chef-Carved Ham
Boiled Potatoes
Steamed Peas and Carrots
Rømmegrøt and Fruit Soup

Dessert Selection
Riskrem, Hazelnut Torte, Kong Haakon Kake,
and a selection of seven cookies

I ate most of this, but as I piled most of it high on small plates I only have a few photographs. As I said, I really liked the lutefisk. I don’t know what I was expecting but I had a vague sense of foreboding about it: it turned out to be entirely odourless and rather neutral in flavour: the pleasure was of texture, which was on the firm jelly–cartilage continuum. In the interests of full disclosure, not everyone in our party experienced this as pleasure (the missus, in particular, did not care for it: she did a literal spit take with her first bite, but she did finish her portion). The various marinated, pickled and cured fish were all excellent as well, as were the pickled cucumbers and beets. The one disappointment was the meatballs (the Medisterkaker) which were a bit too dense for my liking (this may be authentically Norwegian-Minnesotan, of course). And the desserts were very good too: in particular the rhubarb cake and the chocolate torte (which, I think, incorporated almond rather than the listed hazelnut last night); I was sorry to miss out on the King Haakon cake—I blame the late addition to our table who was telling us a story about a lutefisk company and shop elsewhere in the state (a shop that small children would apparently cry when entering, on account of the smell).

On to the pictures! (Click on any of them to launch a slideshow with detailed captions.)

Here we have a lot of pickled, marinated and cured fish. Pickled herring at front; three different takes on sardines; and rather excellent gravlaks (I briefly pondered carrying a lot of this home in my pockets). Also visible in the rear are the excellent pickled veg.

Very good summer sausage and rullepølse (this is a stuffed, rolled, boiled, cooled and sliced beef thingy). The orange’ish cheese is the Gjetost, very close to fudge. Also visible in the back is the lefse, a rather excellent think pancake that made me think “sweet rumali rotis”.

And the lutefisk. I’ve described it above. It was served with cream sauce and drawn butter: our table companion told us one is the Norwegian accompaniment and one the Swedish but I can’t remember which is which. I will single out for praise the boiled potatoes.

The meatballs were too dense for my liking, as I said. The apricot-stuffed porkloin and especially the ham were really good though.

Riskrem is not an insurance policy taken out by people planning to eat lutefisk, it is a dessert made with, surprise, surprise, rice and cream. Imagine rice pudding with not a huge amount of rice in it and you’ll have a good sense of it. Some of us liked it, I found the consistency with the low rice content a little offputting.

These cakes though were excellent. By the way, it may be a Christmas festival but you know it’s at a liberal arts college because the candy card still says “Happy Holidays”.

It’s not a cheap meal per se ($25 for adults, $13 for kids 4-12) but it’s a very good value for what it is. If you’re in town, or within reach, and like us had somehow never heard of or gone to this before, I recommend it highly: there are still three opportunities to eat it this year.

Now, I’m trying to decide whether to also go to this on Saturday…