STANWOOD — To many Norwegians, lutefisk may as well be ambrosia.
Lovers of the traditional Norwegian dish descended upon Stanwood High School for a taste from “the old country.”
“We’ve had more than 1,200 people come here for our lutefisk; from Canada, Oregon and California, even some from Norway,” Jim Lund said.
Lund, 74, of Stanwood, is a Lions Club member. The club has held the lutefisk dinner for 50 years, with each year drawing considerable crowds to sample the delicacy. Held on the last Sunday of October, the Lions Club Lutefisk Dinner has been a Stanwood tradition for half a century.
Some people wait for more than two hours for a seat.
“Because it’s a Stanwood tradition that we keep this up,” Lund said. “People expect it every year. Even when times are tight. This is important to a lot of people in our community.”
More than 2,200 pounds of lutefisk are prepared for the dinner, along with meatballs, mixed vegetables and potatoes.
For the uninitiated, lutefisk is a dish of cooked whitefish combined with soda lye, salted and watered. The high school kitchen, devoid of the usual hamburger and pizza lunchtime offerings, was a bustling hub of cultural enthusiasm as Lions Club members “chunk” fish brought to them by New Day Fisheries in Port Townsend. The fish is then wrapped in cheesecloth and then cooked. It is then served with a white sauce or with butter.
While some may consider lutefisk a meal you wouldn’t eat on a bet, enthusiasm for the dish is apparent among the diners.
For the Stanwood High School volleyball team, the lutefisk dinner is a rite of passage.
“Fish gets everywhere if you’re not careful. Last year someone even got some lutefisk in their shoe,” Kelsey Kanehen said. Kanehen is a junior at Stanwood High School and as part of the volleyball team has served lutefisk at the dinner for three years.
Leah Titus is a senior and has served lutefisk for four years. She remembers how tough it was as a freshman.
Now she sees the dinner as what it is meant to be — tradition.
“Grandparents come here with their grandchildren, you can see the tradition being passed down,” Titus said.
Cari Amandson has been waiting tables for 15 years for the Stanwood Lions Club and attributes the popularity to the dinner due to the rarity of the dish.
“You can’t get good lutefisk just anywhere,” Amandson said. “You can get it from places in Ballard and Poulsbo, but this is the number one place to get it.”
Reporter Justin Arnold: 425-339-3432 or jarnold@heraldnet.com.
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