I’m Norwegian, pretty much our entire traditional kitchen is like that.
One particular highlight that makes a real head-scratcher, though, is Lutefisk.
Here’s what you do to make some:
- Grab an appropriately sized, dried cod that you have lying around (as you do).
- Saw it in half, and leave the parts in freezing cold water for 5-6 days. Keep the cold water running so that it changes continuously, or add ice cubes if you can not. Add extra time if your cod happened to be extra large or extra dry.
- Soak this intermediate result in store-bought sodium hydroxide for two days, or make your own lye from ashes and water if you’re old-school. Keep your chemistry experiment in a spacious pot, it will grow in size.
- Remove toxic residue by leaving the husk formerly known as fish under running water for 3-6 days, thereby rendering it remotely edible.
I can vaguely comprehend how a brave materials scientist might deduce from first principles that the outcome of this process may not be fatal, and could demonstrate that by eating it for show.
I can not understand how my plebeian ancestors thought it would be a great idea to drench an otherwise harmless dried fish in poison, just to check if it tastes better when you wash it off again.
Frankly, I don’t even think it gets that much better, but apparently, some do.
Lord knows how they discovered it.
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