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