On Dec 20, 7:28*pm, jo4hn wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
On Dec 20, 2:00 pm, jo4hn wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
Lew Hodgett wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
Carol made chicken and rice soup - thick enough to stand a table knife
in. Grilled some butter, parmesan, and garlic topped bread. A little
tomato and lettuce salad on the side.
Perfect for a cold, blustery winter evening on the Great Plains.
Where is, as Garrison Kiellor calls it, "the glue that holds the
Midwest together", the Cream of Mushroom Soup?G
Down here in sunny tropical Iowa we hold that in reserve for January and
February.
I'm pretty sure the folks up near Lake Woebegone have already started on
the cream of mushroom casseroles.
Ayup. *That's the official Lutheran Tuna Casserole made with cream of
mushroom soup, tuna, peas, etc. and topped with potato chips. *Comfort
food. *Keillor even has a song about it.
* * * * takk for maten,
* * * * jon jonsson (grampa's spelling)

I'm afraid I have to agree with Lew. Tuna from a can smells like a
public urinoir in Amsterdam.

Potato chips?? Yikes!

I guess those Lutherans will eat anything.

Witness lutefisk.

Okay... I get it now...

Lutefisk is made from air-dried or salted/dried whitefish (normally
cod, but ling is also used), prepared with lye, in a sequence of
particular treatments. The watering steps of these treatments differ
slightly for salted/dried whitefish because of its high salt content.
The first treatment is to soak the stockfish in cold water for five to
six days (with the water changed daily). The saturated stockfish is
then soaked in an unchanged solution of cold water and lye for an
additional two days. The fish will swell during this soaking,
attaining an even larger size than in its original (undried) state,
while its protein content decreases by more than 50 percent, producing
its famous jelly-like consistency. When this treatment is finished,
the fish (saturated with lye) has a pH value of 11–12, and is
therefore caustic. To make the fish edible, a final treatment of yet
another four to six days of soaking in cold water (also changed daily)
is needed. Eventually, the lutefisk is ready to be cooked.
In Finland, the traditional reagent used is birch ash. It contains
high amounts of potassium carbonate and hydrocarbonate, giving the
fish a more mellow treatment than would sodium hydroxide (lyestone).
It is important to not incubate the fish too long in the lye, because
saponification of the fish fats may occur, effectively rendering the
fish fats into soap. The term for such spoiled fish in Finnish is
saippuakala (soap fish).

THENNNNNNNN traditionally, people drink a boatload of Akvavit. Before,
during and after eating 'soap-fish'.

Now, I have eaten raw-fresh-from-the-North-Sea herring with a couple
of belts of Akvavit.

I saw the light. I have been to the mountain top.