Our Scandinavian Traditions

In our family, the holiday season kicks off with lefse making at Grandma's house shortly after Thanksgiving.  Closer to Christmas, we make the more perishable things: potato sausage and krumkake. Both are served on Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning. I don't eat the sausage, but take part in making it--gotta preserve family traditions!


1. Wash and peel the potatoes.



2. Chop and cook one onion.

 

4. Slice and then grind the salt pork. Only a little bit goes in.

5. Grind the potatoes.

6. Rinse casings and check for knots or other flaws.

7. Cut casings to desired sausage length.

8. Rinse casings.



9. Mix ground potatoes with ground pork. Then add salt, pepper, and allspice. There isn't a set recipe for this--this year the basic plan was 10 pounds of potatoes to 4 pounds of meat, and spiced to taste. Mom throws a little bit of meat into a skillet, Grandma cooks it up, and everyone tastes to determine what else is needed. There is a lot of allspice!

 

10. Stuff the casings! This is when we were just starting, so all you see is air coming out of the machine, but I did make some pretty good sausages!

 

11. Smile awkwardly as mom wipes spashed meat off of your t-shirt.

  

Voila! The finished product!



Yesterday evening we also made krumkake, but almond flavored, not lemon.

It was quite an operation, now that technology has provided us with an electric grill that makes two at a time! Grandma knew exactly how to set up the table; one roller on each side and the cooker in the middle, so things went very smoothly.