hard to believe the people who came up with lefse came up with lutefisk.
Posted on 12/19/2007 4:19:23 PM PST by SJackson
GALESVILLE - Phyllis Wood's farmhouse basement could pass for Santa's workshop this time of year.
North of Galesville in Trempealeau County, the four "Lefse Ladies" diligently and efficiently roll and cook 600 to 900 lefse rounds a day as Christmas approaches. Flour dusts their noses as they work from dawn to well past dusk six days a week.
Throughout the Midwest, enclaves of Norwegian descendents have made lefse ubiquitous. It's sold in stores, offered in restaurants and is a staple of church suppers. Mrs. Wood, however, has carved her lefse niche by being particular about the process and ingredients. It's kept her in business for 40 years.
The ladies' cooking mesmerizes. Like a ballet troupe, they make it look easy and artful.
Each woman plays her role. Mrs. Wood and her sister Norma Conrad of Blair stand side by side, rolling rounds of mixed mashed potatoes, flour, salt and margarine into paper-thin lefse. They twirl the raw product around a flat stick and unroll it onto a dry griddle.
Dolores Bockenhauer of Galesville - the oldest Lefse Lady at 79 - shifts from foot to foot at the griddle. Mrs. Bockenhauer bakes several rounds at once, somehow remembering which ones need turning or removing.
"You've got to pick them up soon but you can't pick them up too soon," Mrs. Bockenhauer said.
She flips each round three times on the 500-degree griddle.
"If they don't bake fast, they get dry and hard," Mrs. Wood said.
None of the rolling or baking would happen without Alice Stuhr of Melrose, who staffs the mixer. She scoops mashed potatoes mixed with margarine into a Hobart mixer, adding flour and salt.
"A lot of people use oil, but I don't like the taste of it," Mrs. Wood said. She also refuses to use preservatives.
Mrs. Stuhr rolls the lefse into logs, cutting it into cookie-size rounds that she flattens and places on trays.
Mrs. Wood's husband, Ralph, peels potatoes at night. The women use about 150 pounds a day.
"It's hard to get nice potatoes," Mrs. Wood said. She prefers Jolivette Family Farms in West Salem.
The women make lefse to order so it's fresh. A waiting list is common, especially as the team has scaled back its production. They used to make 1,200 lefse a day.
"We don't always push ourselves like that anymore because we're getting too old," Mrs. Wood said.
After baking, the ladies cool lefse for three to four hours on racks in a room with an open window. Afterward, the ladies go through the rounds one by one, dusting off excess flour. They fold the rounds into triangles and wrap them in packages of three or a dozen. Then they affix a label. Mrs. Wood's business is state-licensed - one of few in the area, she said.
The lefse business lasts from Labor Day to Easter, reaching fever pitch between Thanksgiving and New Year's.
Four decades of lefse-baking hasn't turned Mrs. Wood off the tortilla-like treat.
"The way I like it the very, very best is when you have it with a whole meal," she said.
Her five children, however, won't touch it. Nor will Mrs. Conrad. She's even been turned off mashed potatoes.
But customers love it. Orders of 20 dozen aren't out of the ordinary. The ladies also bake for church suppers. Piggly Wiggly in Galesville and Festival Foods in Holmen sell the lefse.
"It's the best around. It's just like the way my mother used to make it. It's the real stuff," said Joyce Johnson, who owns Common Market, a gourmet and health food store in Galesville.
The ladies don't stop at lefse, making other Norwegian treats such as rosettes, sandbakkels and flat bread.
Mrs. Wood's other love is donuts. If she didn't make lefse, she'd open a donut shop, she said.
"They're just plain, old-fashioned fry cakes," she said of her donuts. She's squeezing in orders for 50 dozen this Christmas.
Despite the long days, the women enjoy each other's company.
Mrs. Wood said, "We have a lot of fun down here. We discuss everything from ... "
"Cadavers," Mrs. Conrad filled in with a giggle.
More serious discussions relate to their church-circle lessons, books and family.
"Some days we get the giggles so bad we can hardly stand it," Mrs. Wood said.
And like Santa's elves, Mrs. Wood is in business to make people happy. The business's profits are slim anyway, she said.
The pleasure comes from hearing a customer say her lefse tastes just like grandma's, she said.
Megan Parker may be reached at (800) 236-4004, ext. 3867 or megan.parker@ecpc.com.
hard to believe the people who came up with lefse came up with lutefisk.
LOL, SJackson, I was just getting ready to ping Diana, then saw you did.
I did anyway, because if she cooks like this (which I suspect she does) I want her to go ahead and put that property in Wisconsin up for sale and get down here to Tennessee.
I’ve been working on Diana for about two years now to get on down here. “Bout got her convinced.
CrappieLuck has been recruited to help me in these efforts. I think he’ll agree to help me bribe her with some good crappie fishing tips (we might even show you our best spots).
All I had to do was tell him Diana makes her own beer and I think he’s recruited (grin).
I used to get Lefse from an old Norwegian bakery in Brooklyn of all places.
Homemade beer and good eats?
I’ll get the truck gassed up. She may need help with the move.
Scandanavian Brooklyn, that's funny. I think I've seen just about every ethnic group represented as being from Brooklyn/NY in a war movie except Scandanavians. I hate crepes, but I bot a crepe pan a few years back on sale just to make lefse.
I don't fish much anymore, they're way to messy to clean based on what you're left with. I regret it though, every spring I say this year.
The Scandanavians (Finns and Norwegians) came in the late 19th/early 20th century to work in the shipyards and as longshoreman. The originally settled in Red Hook and points south, but eventually made it down to the comparatively more prosperous environs of Bay Ridge, where a handful are still hanging on.
It was Finnish immigrants in Brooklyn that introduced the concept of cooperative housing to the United States.
Thanks, I didn’t know that, I thought they mostly moved to the upper midwest.
The Swedes originally settled Delaware (Fort Cristina, modern day Wilmington), but left after some bad harvests. There was even a sizeable Finnish settlement in Lake Worth, FL that, alas, is no more.
You ain’t heard nothing yet. She makes homemade bratwurst (sp), can kill, skin and gut a deer, and the first post she replied to me was explaining how she had cleaned dozens of pheasants that day.
Diana is the ultimate nature gal. She believes in killin’ and grillin.’
She’s probably skinning some critter right now, that’s why she hasn’t replied yet.
What gets me is she does this in her yard in six foot of snow. Now that’s tough!!!!
Aw, why don’t these ladies live near me? I loved lefse when I spent a year in Sweden as a child, and haven’t tasted it since.
Truth is, I am a catch and release type, not much into the eating part.
I have a cajun brother in law who puts every fish he catches in the freezer, or cooks them immediately. His fish frying technique is legendary.
He also makes his own spice mixture. His spice recipe puts Tony Chachere (sp)to shame.
Thanks for posting the recipe link. I’m going to try some of those.
Lefse ping...
Heh... :~) We’re going up to make lefse Saturday I think.
I read the recipe, it sounds yummy.
I read the recipe, it sounds yummy.
Roger that. :-)
I’m especially craving lefse this year. Dunno why.
What you wanna bet these ladies in this story have at least one of grandpa’s rolling pins?
Mark
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