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Monday, October 14, 2013

Lefse- A Norwegian Family Tradition


On Sunday the women of the Thoe family gathered to practice the time-honored tradition of making lefse.

Our great-aunts have been making lefse for family gatherings, the church bizarre and smörgåsbords for years. When we put together the lefse party, we didn’t realize that my great-aunt Martha’s lefse is something of a legend, and her recipe a well-kept family secret.

I headed to Grandma’s house on Saturday night to boil and rice the potatoes. Grandma filled me in on Martha’s prowess in the art of Scandinavian culinary delights. I then suggested that we could use our lefse at the family thanksgiving, but Grandma didn’t know if our lefse would be suitable to serve guests. I started to sense that I was in over my head…  

We all gathered the next day, added the flour and started rolling balls. The aunts started to discuss the going-rate of lefse over the years. They figured $1.25 was the current rate for a package of 3 lefse rolls, but they also acknowledged that really good lefse could go for $1 apiece. After our first few attempts, Connie remarked, “Well you wouldn’t get a dollar for that one!”

It was a really wonderful day, and Michelle and I have high hopes that someday soon we will be able to make lefse suitable to serve to guests!

Bonnie made an awesome video of the day, you can watch it here: Lefse- A Norwegian Family Tradition

Thanks Grandma, Loretta, Connie & Martha for such a great day! xo