The lines stretch around the entire building—entire block, really—at Ingebretsen’s on a typical day during the holidays. People travel from all over for their Swedish meatball mix, their lefse, and, of course, their lingonberry jam.
However, it is also possible that some in line might be there for their lutefisk. Yes, that lutefisk. Pre-refrigeration, the lye-soaked cod was born somewhere in Scandinavia out of food-preservation necessity—a way to make nutritionally vital yet incredibly perishable fish shelf-stable. Put another way: Nobody was turning the otherwise succulent whitefish into a mouth-puckering gelatinous blob because they liked it better that way.
“It was a survival thing back then—nobody meant for it to be a delicacy,” says Julie Ingebretsen, a third-generation Ingebretsen, while hiding out in the store’s basement before the season officially starts. “It’s not a big deal over there, you know. It’s a bigger deal here. And it’s gotten to be a little bit of a joke, but also one of those cultural things people hang on to.”
And hang on they do. Despite modern refrigeration enabling us to relegate lutefisk to the same dustbin of history as whale oil lamps, lutefisk had other ideas. Take the almost unbelievable proliferation of lutefisk dinners across the Cities. Yes, despite the fact that fresh cod is now readily available, every November, church basements fill with Minnesotans of all ages piling plates with lutefisk, potatoes, and meatballs.
Norwegian Lutheran church Mindekirken in Minneapolis hosts three 168-person seatings at its biannual dinner. And most visitors aren’t church members, just people who want to nosh on something that might make their cheeks turn inside out. Bethlehem Lutheran Church on Lyndale Avenue South hosts about 650 lutefisk-dinner attendees each year. And it’s not just people who grew up on the stuff showing up to these things.
“It seems to have engaged a more intergenerational audience than, say, 10 years ago,” says Whitney Stofflet, marketing and communications manager at Bethlehem.
But it was the Minnesota State Fair that truly propelled lutefisk into the cultural zeitgeist of a summer that otherwise belonged to Taylor Swift and Barbie. The Crispy Lutefisk Steam Bun, available at Shanghai Henri’s in the International Bazaar, was stuffed with carrots, cilantro, cabbage, and yum-yum sauce, plus a hunk of sweet hoisin sauce–topped lutefisk from Olsen Fish Company in north Minneapolis. Like most previous forms of lutefisk, the version at the fair was not well-loved flavor-wise but still somehow managed to become beloved.
“I did try the State Fair lutefisk,” says Lenae Dahl, fourth-gen manager of the deli at Ingebretsen’s. “So did my dad. That was a little different.”
And by “different,” Dahl means “not as firm” as traditional lutefisk, like the stuff Ingebretsen’s sells. Which, on the third Saturday of every October, people can try free when the store holds its annual lutefisk-tasting day.
“We sell packages that are 2, 3 pounds,” Dahl says. “That’s a lot to buy just to sample. I’ve seen kids who are 5 or 6 years old come in and try it. That was pretty impressive.”
But to some—like the residents of Madison, Minnesota, the bona fide Lutefisk Capital of the United States—2 or 3 pounds is nothing. Madison earned its moniker in the 1980s, when Olsen Fish Company, the largest lutefisk producer in the world, realized that the town bought more lutefisk than anywhere else it supplied—by far.
Accordingly, each fall, Madison hosts its weekend-long Norsefest, replete with an arts fair, local shopping, bingo, and, of course, a lutefisk-eating contest that historically has been dominated by Jerry Osteraas—the Joey Chestnut of the competitive-lutefisk-eating world. One year, Osteraas’s winning total was a whopping 8.25 pounds of lutefisk.
This year, for the festival’s 50th anniversary, the Madison Area Chamber of Commerce is trying to sign 50 competitors up for the November 10 event. Contestants start with a quarter, half, or full pound (depending on their division), and they eat as much as they can, with more lutefisk being added to their plates as necessary. Oh, and they have to keep it down for at least a minute.
“I’m sad to say that rule’s been violated a couple of times over the years,” says chamber executive director Maynard Meyer. Hopefully there’s no puking at this year’s contest, though, and a new lutefisk-eating standard-bearer emerges.
“Jerry’s slowing down now,” Meyer says. “We’re a little concerned about what we’re going to do after Jerry, because it’s quite a challenge to find someone who’ll eat that much lutefisk.”
Meyer worries that if the younger gen (or out-of-towners) doesn’t step up soon, they’ll have to pull the plug on the competition. Meanwhile, some church dinners across the state have ceased, even as others gain traction or are experiencing a post-pandemic resurgence. In my Norwegian family, my 93-year-old grandmother eats lutefisk at Christmas, but she’s the only one—something Dahl says she hears in the deli from other visitors, too.
But Julie Ingebretsen, for her part, is sure the cultural impact of the dish will never leave Minnesota entirely, even if traditions ebb and flow from generation to generation. After all, Ingebretsen’s still sells a couple thousand pounds of it during the holidays. “I think lutefisk will stick around,” she says. “Partly because it’s such an unusual thing—it’s so unique—more than as an actual food source. It feels like something that should stay for a long time.”
After all, when it’s soaked in that much lye, how could it not?