Tag: scandinavian

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A Cache of Immigrant History

Our geocache is back in Yankton after spending the summer of 2015 visiting on the front porch of the Berdahl-Rolvaag House, located at Heritage Park on the Augustana University campus in Sioux Falls. Our logbook appears to have floated off in a gust of prairie wind, but we found a few comments from satisfied geocachers online:

“Very interesting history. Thanks, South Dakota Magazine. I am part of the Goonies cachers — family members from Mitchell, Sioux Falls, Rapid City. We have found all of your caches so far except the first one. The door was locked to the tower and it was on a Sunday with nobody around to let us in.” — Buffalodon

“SEEK84 and I stopped by to pick this one up as we were returning from Yankton where we had been geocaching for 3 days. I honestly did not know this place existed until we stopped to find the cache and sign the log. SEEK84 and I actually stopped by the South Dakota Magazine office prior to heading north/home. Here we found their cache and paid our subscription for another year. Love the magazine and love the cache. Thanks for placing another one.” — Jaguars96

“I left work a little early today so I could stop and visit my niece and newborn baby boy. This came out as I was on my way so I made a little detour. I have gone past this park many times but never stopped. I’m glad I had a reason today.” — Raw54

Thanks to those who sought out last year’s cache and learned a little bit about South Dakota history at the Berdahl-Rolvaag House. Part of Augustana’s Heritage Park, the house was built by Norwegian immigrant Andrew Berdahl near Garretson in 1884. Andrew’s daughter Jennie married”Giants in the Earth” author Ole Rolvaag, and some of their possessions can be found inside the home. A 1909 schoolhouse once used near Renner Corner, Beaver Creek Lutheran Church, and the cabin where Ole Rolvaag wrote are also located at Heritage Park, south of 33rd Street between Grange and Prairie Avenue in Sioux Falls.

Our 2016 geocache will be ready soon! When we have coordinates for you, we’ll post them here in Editor’s Notebook.

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∆blekage: A Crummy Dessert

By Laura Andrews

Do you know what’s been keeping me up at night lately? Believe it or not — bread crumbs. No, I haven’t been snacking in bed — my worries are a product of a”waste not, want not” lifestyle. Over the last year, my husband and I have managed to accumulate an indecent amount of dried bread. I’d be ashamed to tell you how much we have. Some of it goes in Mike’s favorite hamburger mixture, some of it gets used in bread pudding, but a few crumbs scattered here and there really don’t put a dent in the problem.

I’d like to ask you all for advice, but I suspect that a bread crumb avalanche is not something most people have to worry about. So instead, I’m turning to my ethnic heritage for a way to chip at the problem.

Up in Viborg, they often serve Êblekage as a dessert for their annual Taste of Denmark dinner. ∆blecake means”apple cake” in Danish, but there’s no cake involved here. This dessert consists of layers of toasted, sweetened bread crumbs, applesauce and a generous dollop of whipped cream. It’s an ideal dessert for frugal people, it’s easy to make and it tastes pretty good, too.

∆blekage

Adapted from Delectably Danish: Recipes and Reflections by Julie Jensen McDonald

2 cups crumbs
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 1/2 cups applesauce
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar
Red jelly or jam (optional)

Place crumbs, butter and 1 tablespoon sugar in a pan and cook until crumbs are brown. Add a layer of crumbs to the bottom of a glass serving dish, followed by a layer of applesauce. Repeat until you run out of ingredients.

Whip cream together with two tablespoons of sugar and spread it atop the crumb-applesauce concoction. If you’re feeling fancy, dot the top with red jelly or jam.

Refrigerate if you want a soft dessert, or serve immediately if you like your crumbs crunchy.

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Krumkake in Gayville

By Ruth Steil

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


For Ardys Olson of Gayville, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without krumkake (krum ka ka), or crooked cake. The thin, crisp Scandinavian cookie is a family tradition.

Ardys and her brothers, Duane and Jake, were raised on a farm near Irene during the Depression by their parents, Alfred and Alice Lee. The difficult times forced a frugality that touched all aspects of life, including the holidays.

When Ardys was very young, the Lees didn’t have a tree for the Christmas holiday.”Our first Christmas tree was one we were lucky enough to win in a drawing at school when I was in the seventh grade,” she says. Christmas gifts were pajamas sewn by her mother and toys carved with a pocketknife by her father. Ardys still treasures a set of doll furniture her father made.

On Christmas Eve, the family went to Bethlehem Lutheran Church near their home, where Ardys and her siblings sang and recited little verses in the Christmas program.”It wasn’t an elaborate pageant,” she says. Her mother recorded the following recitation in Ardys’ baby book:”I’m just a little girl and I haven’t much to say except to say I wish you Merry Christmas before I run away!” After the program, sacks of hard candy, nuts and an orange were handed out. That was the only orange the kids would eat all year.

There was something else the Lees had only once a year. Just before Christmas, Ardys’ mother baked krumkake using a special decorative two-sided iron similar to a waffle iron. She heated the iron on the top of a cook stove fired by cobs and wood. It must have been a real challenge but Ardys says,”My mother was an excellent baker and cook.” Since the krumkake were such a treat, they were hidden away until Christmas Day dinner.

As a child, Ardys didn’t have much interest in the kitchen. She taught herself to make krumkake as a young bride when she married Eugene”Swede” Olson. He’s really a Norwegian, but his childhood barber called him”a white-haired Swede” and the name stuck.

After his retirement, Swede became Ardys’ first assistant in her holiday krumkake baking. She still uses her mother’s 80-year-old iron baker, heating it over an old gas stove in the garage. Grates on newer ranges won’t heat the iron properly. Ardys also uses her mother’s recipe for the delicate cookie.”I’ve seen lots of other recipes,” she says,”but this one works, so I stick with it.”

After mixing the batter, Ardys pours a scant teaspoon on the preheated iron. The cookie is done on the first side in about 10 seconds. She turns the iron over to complete the baking on the other side. After another 10 seconds, Ardys flips the cookie off with a knife onto a flat tray. While still hot and flexible, Swede quickly rolls the cookie around a wooden peg. The Olsons make three batches of three dozen cookies and store them in gallon ice cream containers. And, just like Ardys’ mother, they must put the cookies in hiding for the holidays.

Ardys and Swede have three daughters and all of them covet their grandmother’s krumkake iron.”They’ll have to draw straws for it,” Ardys says. These days, electric irons are available with Teflon surfaces and timers. When the Olsons bought their daughter one of the new-fangled electric bakers, she told them,”The cookies just don’t taste like yours.”

Here is Alice Lee’s krumkake recipe. Without her special iron, the cookies may not taste just like hers, but it’s a good bet your family will love them just the same.

1 beaten egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup cream
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat iron until drops of water dance on the surface. Put 1 scant teaspoon of batter in middle of iron. Close the lid, press down tightly and bake for 10 seconds. Turn iron to other side and bake 10 seconds. Open lid. Flip cookie off with a knife to a flat pan. Quickly roll on wooden peg. Let set until next cookie is ready to come off iron.

Optional: dust with powdered sugar or fill cones with whipped cream or other filling.

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Holiday Foods Heritage

By Jennifer Thom

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the Nov/Dec 1993 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

On Christmas Eve in 1910, Emelia Nielson was a little disgruntled. Earlier that day she and her two-year-old daughter Esther had arrived in Hooker, South Dakota, just east of Viborg, by train, ending a long journey from Denmark. Emelia’s husband met them in the station. Chris had arrived months earlier to find a new home for his family.

“Mother said it was the worst Christmas she ever put in,” Esther recalled. Emelia, tired from the trip, declined an invitation to a Christmas party. Instead, Chris cooked bacon and eggs; dessert was lemon pie.

“Mother was wishing herself back in Denmark,” Esther said.”In America, they didn’t keep Christmas our way.”

Never again did Emelia have lemon pie at Christmas. She kept Christmas her way next year, and the years that followed, serving a robust Christmas dinner of roast goose, red cabbage, preserves and Danish apple cake.

“We always baked certain things: peppernuts, Danish puffs and Danish apple cake,” Esther said.”I was the oldest, so I always had to help. I was proud of that.”

South Dakotans still enjoy preparing dishes that are part of their heritage. Scandinavian specialties — rosettes, krumkake and lefse — are popular with Scandinavians and non-Scandinavians alike. As a nod to modern times, today’s cooks use a few shortcuts when they prepare dishes that celebrate their heritage at Christmas.

Baking most Scandinavian treats is time-intensive. The cook has to form each cookie or sweet individually. Sandbakkels, for instance, are made by pressing the dough into individual tart pans. After baking, the sandbakkels are gently tapped out of their pans one at a time.

When longtime Sioux Falls resident Rosaaen Olson visited her son in Norway, she decided to mother him with a batch of chocolate chip cookies. In the land of formed cookies, it wasn’t easy finding what she needed.”We couldn’t find a baking sheet anywhere,” Rosaaen recalled,”so we had to buy a pizza pan.”

Rosaaen’s been baking Julekake, Norwegian Christmas bread, for many years. It’s her middle son’s favorite; the youngest favors lefse. “If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it big,” Rosaaen said. She doubles the Julekake recipe so it yields eight loaves, some earmarked for gifts.”The eggs and milk make a rich dough,” Rosaaen said.”That’s what makes it so good. Scandinavian bread has more body.”

No doubt, Scandinavians like their food plentiful at Christmas.”One child goes without a present,” Thomas Asfeldt mused,”to pay for all the candy.” His mother was raised in Denmark and moved to America when she was 21. At Christmastime in his Sioux Falls kitchen, Thomas makes liver pate, a spread always found on a traditional Danish Christmas buffet. His wife, Karen, a Norwegian from Webster, chooses treats from their Scandinavian heritage to try each year. Two of her favorites are Coffee Balls and Orange Marmalade.”I like to make those two because they can be done in an evening,” Karen said.

When Emelia Hansen arrived in Hooker one hundred years ago, she brought with her few material possessions, but she had a rich storehouse of traditions and memories. Her descendants are now stewards of those traditions.

Invited by the Smithsonian Institute, Esther traveled to Washington D. C. to demonstrate the Danish recipe aebleskiver. In a tent by the reflecting pool, Esther prepared aebleskiver, using knitting needles to turn over the muffin-like treats as they browned in a cast iron skillet.

Closer to home, a minister in Viborg asked Esther to help him recreate a Danish Christmas for a party at the church. Esther recited the Danish song,”Nu Er Det Jul Igen” (Now it is Christmas Again) while the minister wrote down the phonetic spelling. The minister tutored a choir of young Viborg residents.

“I had tears in my eyes. I was so proud of them, said Esther.”You’d swear they were a bunch of little Danes.”

Karen Asfeldt’s Marmalit (Marmalade)

3 to 5 oranges, washed clean
2 cups dried apricots
2 to 3 lemons, washed clean
1 cup sugar, or to taste
2 teaspoons vanilla

Do not peel the oranges and lemons. Cover and soak apricots in water for 3 to 4 hours. Cut fruit into wedges. Use food processor to mince the fruit. Add 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Stir and let sit for 20 minutes. Adjust sugar to taste. Store covered in refrigerator for 3 to 4 weeks.


Emelia Nielsen’s Danish Cookies

1 cup lard
3 eggs
1 cup butter
2 teaspoons baking ammonia (available at pharmacies or online) in a little water
Dash of cardamom
2 cups sugar
4 cups flour

Mix all ingredients into a stiff dough. Knead well, let stand and rest a while. Roll out thin, and cut with cookie wheel into shapes. Brush top with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375 degrees until light brown.

Rosaaen Olson’s Julekake (Christmas Bread)

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup water
3 cups milk
2 packages dry yeast
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
10 cups flour
2 eggs
2 cups candied or dried fruit

Melt butter in 1/2 cup water and 3 cups milk. Put yeast, sugar, salt, cardamom and 5 cups of flour in a large bowl. Beat 2 eggs into milk mixture and add to all ingredients. Beat all 3 to 4 minutes. Gradually add about 5 cups flour. Mix in candied or dried fruit.

Let dough rise one hour or until doubled. Shape into four loves. Put into greased pan. Let rise again for one hour. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes. Frost with powdered sugar frosting and top with slivered almonds.

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Saint Ur-WHO?

By Laura Andrews

This weekend, many South Dakotans will honor a very special holy man. But his fame is limited — you won’t find him in Butler’s Lives of the Saints or any other hagiography, and the Vatican doesn’t claim him. His accomplishments are limited to ridding one little European country of an animal plague. Of course we’re referring to St. Urho of Finland.

Urho’s a manufactured saint — Minnesota Finns dreamt him up in the 1950s to show up the Irish and their Saint Patrick. Their legend states that St. Urho was a hardy fellow, a voracious eater of kalla mojakka (fish head soup) and sour buttermilk. When Finland’s grape crop was threatened by grasshoppers, Urho saved the day. He banished the pests with a simple chant,”Hein‰sirkka, hein‰sirkka, mene t‰‰lt‰ hiiteen.” (Non-Finnish readers, that’s”Grasshopper, grasshopper, go to hell.”) The insects obeyed, the grapes were saved, and wine flowed for everyone.

Phony or not, Finnish Americans embraced the saint. Now St. Urho’s Day celebrations occur all over the country each March 16, incorporating fun, Finnish foods, and St. Urho’s official colors, Nile green and royal purple.

If you would like to participate in St. Urho’s Day festivities here in South Dakota, you’ve got two options this Saturday. Lake Norden will hold their annual parade at 11 am on Main Avenue. It’s followed by a potluck and a special program at the Community Center. Frederick, South Dakota also observes St. Urho’s Day with Finnish foods like mojakka (beef soup), lihapiirakat (meat pies) and Finn bread. There’ll also be a wine tasting exchange, where participants of drinking age bring a favorite bottle of wine for others to sample. Join in the fun at Frederick’s Community Center from 6-8 pm.

Mojakka: A Finnish Favorite

This recipe comes to us via Heidi Marttila-Losure, a Frederick native and the editor and project administrator of Dakotafire Media, a journalism project that focuses on the rural issues facing the James River watershed area of North and South Dakota. Marttilla-Losure told us the secret of making mojakka: “Do not use flour when you brown the meat. Just brown it in butter. If you use flour, you might make a fine soup, but it won’t be mojakka. The clear broth and the rutabaga are its key characteristics.”

1 1/2 to 2 pounds beef stew meat
2 tablespoons butter
6 cups water, broth or a combination
1 medium onion, chopped
2 teaspoons whole allspice
6 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 large rutabaga, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon salt

Brown meat in butter. Place meat in stock pot with water, onion and allspice. Bring to a simmer. Stir in the potatoes, carrots, rutabaga and salt. Replace lid and simmer on medium-low until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.

Some variations on this recipe include adding garlic, bay leaves or celery.

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King of Klub

By Laura Andrews

We’ve all heard of soup kitchens and spaghetti suppers. Feeds of lutefisk, Rocky Mountain oysters or wild game are not uncommon. But up in Milbank, folks feast on on a rarer delicacy — a Norwegian potato dumpling called klub.

It’s an early winter tradition in Milbank, thanks to local body shop owner and former assistant fire chief Al Mathiason. Over the years, Mathiason’s huge dumplings simmered in ham broth have raised funds for the local fire department and for youth groups at American Lutheran Church.

Mathiason learned to make klub at his mother’s knee. She was German and Irish, but picked up the technique from her mother-in-law in order to please her full-blooded Norwegian husband.”He liked potato klub, lefse, lutefisk, all the goodies,” says Al.

It’s still a Mathiason family favorite, mixed up for family dinners and special visitors. Kathy Mathiason, Al’s wife, says,”Our 90-year-old uncle George came from California. We offered to make him klub, so he was watching Al make dumplings and couldn’t believe how much flour he was using. After he saw how well they stayed together, he said that must have been what his wife and sister did wrong — their dumplings always fell apart. Al told him not to mention that to the girls or he would never get dumplings from them again.”

Like so many ethnic foods, klub has many names and many variations. Up in Pierpont, South Dakota, they call it kumla. Others call the spheres raspeballer or potetballer. You can use red or white potatoes — both have their advocates. The Mathiasons use white flour to make light dumplings; others prefer wheat or graham flour.”Traditional dumplings would have a chunk of meat hidden in the middle,” Kathy explains.”It was probably the only meat you ate.” One variation, blodklub, requires boiling the dumplings in — you guessed it — pig or beef blood.

Serving suggestions for klub also vary. Like most Scandinavian foods, it’s good with butter. Some eat it with dark Karo syrup, and others fancy a slosh of ham juice. At the Milbank feeds, it’s often served with ham, coleslaw, homemade bread and butter pickles, salads and desserts. But Kathy tells us,”a real klub eater doesn’t eat any other sides — just dumplings.” Klub leftovers are a special treat when sliced up and fried in butter.

Milbank’s klub feed is usually held in November or December. If you don’t want to wait, try Al’s method below.


Klub for a Crowd

1/2 – 1 bone-in ham
20 lbs. potatoes
5 lbs. flour
Seasoning salt
Garlic salt
Pepper
Ham bouillon, optional

In a large kettle of water, cook a half or a whole ham. When the ham loosens from the bone, remove the meat and leave the broth behind, adding ham bouillon cubes to intensify the flavor, if desired.

Peel potatoes, then shred them in a food processor. Add flour to potatoes until the mixture holds together and reaches dumpling consistency. The exact amount of flour used will vary depending on the moisture in the potatoes. Season to taste with seasoning salt, garlic salt and pepper.

Form the dumplings into balls — anything between tennis ball and softball size is fine — then drop them in the hot ham broth. Cook the klub at a slow boil for about an hour.”They’ll start to loosen and almost float when they’re done,” instructs Al.

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One Contentious Cookie

By Laura Johnson Andrews

For me, the holiday season is all about baking…and eating. Christmas wouldn’t be complete without certain foods — crispy, wafer-thin sugar cookies, krumkake, rosettes, lefse, and most important of all, pebern¯dder, or peppernuts.

But which peppernuts to make? In The Great Scandinavian Baking Book, Beatrice Ojakangas describes peppernuts as”a cookie that starts arguments! Every Dane insists that the only person who really knew how to make them was Mother, Grandma or Aunt Brigitte.” I had two Danish grandmothers with wildly different peppernut styles. I always felt a little disloyal to Grandma Maridell Mark for preferring Grandma Rachel’s white pepper and ginger cookies to her molasses-based models.

After consulting six different cookbooks, I found 12 recipes for peppernuts. None of them were the same, and none of them resembled the crunchy little cookies that showed up in Grandma Johnson’s kitchen every December. There were recipes that called for pulverized filberts, anise, sorghum, lemon rind, eggs, allspice, goose fat, chopped almonds — some didn’t include pepper at all! Even within my mother’s family of Viborg Danes, there is no agreement on how peppernuts should be made. I’ve included her great-aunt Nina (pronounced nynah) Mark’s recipe below, and her Aunt Marilyn has promised to send another once she tracks it down. Grandma Maridell’s version was different yet. Please feel free to share your family’s version in the comments section.

The Germans and the Dutch also have variations on this cookie theme, pfeffernusse and pepernoten. The Danes call them pebern¯dder. Some recipes make a cookie so hard that they must be dunked in coffee to be eaten, but mine are easily chewed, even by my false-toothed father. Although the dough can be a strain on one’s mixer, forming the cookies is a snap — especially if you have small children around who can be coaxed into making snakes out of the dough, as one would with play dough.

Peppernuts

Recipe from Rachel Skoven Johnson

1 cup white syrup
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter or other shortening
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 cups or more of flour

Combine white syrup, sugar, butter and sour cream. Add white pepper and ginger. Stir soda into flour. Slowly mix in flour, a cup or so at a time, until the batter is quite stiff. Be prepared — your mixer may struggle making these cookies.

On a lightly flour-covered surface, take handfuls of dough and roll them into snakes about Ω inch around or so. Cut the snakes into 1/2 inch bits. Bake at 390 degrees for 6-8 minutes or until browned.

Pebern¯dder

Recipe by Nina Mark from the Viborg Centennial Cookbook

2 1/2 cups dark Karo syrup
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter

Heat and cool above ingredients. Add:

2 tablespoons warm milk with 1 teaspoon baking soda mixed in
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
2 eggs
10 cups flour (stir in six cups, then add the remaining flour one cup at a time, stirring thoroughly)

Roll dough into small strips. Cut strips in small pieces. Bake at 275 degrees for 45 minutes.

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Our Office Lutefisk Party

By Ruth Steil

The brown-jacketed deliveryman brought a package to our office door and said,”I think it’s lutefisk. Do you want me to set it outside?” That’s when we knew we were in for an adventure.

Although our staff always enjoys exploring the culinary culture of South Dakota, back in 2006 we realized that many of us at South Dakota Magazine had never tried one of our state’s most infamous holiday dishes. That’s especially surprising because our most senior staffer, Alma Korslund, is an experienced lutefisk chef.

Lutefisk is air-dried codfish that has been rehydrated by a soaking in lye and water, hence the name, lute (lye), fisk (fish), or”lyefish.” Whether lutefisk originated in Norway or Sweden is apparently a fishbone of contention. With all the bad press, it’s a mystery why either country wants to claim it. According to an old Norwegian-American saying,”Half the Norwegians who immigrated to America came in order to escape the hated lutefisk, and the other half came to spread the gospel of lutefisk’s wonderfulness.”

Alma grew up in a Danish household (the Hansens) in the Irene/Viborg area. Her grandparents were Danish immigrants.”We’re Danes, not Norwegians, but we like lutefisk,” she says,”I guess we made it for the Norwegian in-laws.” She was eight when she first tried lutefisk. Her sister didn’t care for the taste, but Alma liked it immediately.”I think it had something to do with all the butter we used,” she admits today.

The Hansens enjoyed lutefisk every Thanksgiving. As the rest of the holiday feast was being set out, the lutefisk was finally put on the stove to boil. Melted butter and the fish were the last things brought to the table.

Lutefisk is traditionally served with mashed potatoes, green beans or creamed peas, lefse and butter — ≠lots of butter. Swedish meatballs were often added to the menu for the faint of stomach.

Although lutefisk can be made in the microwave or oven, Alma still cooks it on the stove, just the way her mother taught her. Here’s how the Hansens did it:

  • Cut large lutefisk filets into portion-sized pieces.
  • Soak in salt water for a few hours before cooking.
  • Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil.
  • Drop fish pieces into boiling water.
  • Wait for water to come back to a boil.
  • Poke with fork — fish will slide off easily when ready.

The fork test is important.”When it slides right off the fork, it has to come out of the water and to the table,” insists Alma. Overcooking lutefisk produces a quivering gelatinous mass, something akin to fish jello.

Lutefisker Alma Korslund in the kitchen.

The lutefisk that arrived via our deliveryman came from Olsen Fish Company of Minneapolis, the world’s largest processor of lutefisk. They produce over half a million pounds of the fragrant fish a year. Approximately 25 tons of that comes directly to South Dakota. Olsen’s even has a Lutefisk Hotline (800-882-0212) to call if you don’t understand the fork poke.

Lutefisk can be purchased fresh or frozen, with skin or without. We received it frozen skinless or kettle ready.”This is a very nice piece of fish,” Alma said,”Sometimes you have to remove the skin.”

When Alma prepared the lutefisk for our magazine staff, the meal was met with some trepidation; the fish doesn’t come without a reputation, after all. But everyone tried it.”They were all good sports,” Alma said. Comments from the diners ranged from, “How do you say ‘ugh’ in Norwegian?” to”Way better than I expected, it reminds me of artificial crabmeat.” Even our editor’s dog, Yeller, ate some. But, he also chews on whatever he finds in the backyard.

Alma concedes that lutefisk may be a dying tradition.”My children can do without it, but they will try it,” she says.”My grandchildren don’t like it at all.” So she often prepares it just for her husband, Dale, and herself — their own little Danish feast.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2006 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Viborg’s Pancake Balls

By Laura Johnson

“∆bleskiver? What’s that? How do you spell it? How do you SAY it?” It’s funny when you realize that something that you take for granted is completely unknown to most of the rest of the world. So it is with my beloved Êbleskiver. Unless you’re lucky enough to be of Danish descent or have been to Viborg’s United Methodist Church for their popular Danish Days Êbleskiver breakfast (to be held at 7 a.m. on July 21, 2012), you are probably not familiar with this, the best of all possible pancakes.

What’s so special about pancakes, you ask? These are ball-shaped, thanks to a cast-iron pan with round indentations. The holes are liberally greased with butter or shortening, which helps prevent sticking, and the batter is turned once or twice with a knitting needle, chopstick or fork to create a spherical treat.

According to legend, the pancake of the Danes was invented by hungry Vikings. Raiding and pillaging worked up an appetite, so the Nordic warriors fried up pancakes on a war-battered shield — the closest thing to a pan they had handy. Believe that if you like, but the name means”apple slices,” not”post-raiding snack.” Long ago, the pancakes were served with an apple slice or dollop of applesauce inside, but today they’re generally made without filling. In Denmark, they’re served with a dusting of powdered sugar and a bit of jam. Around here, I’ve seen them topped with maple syrup, honey or cinnamon sugar.

In the old country, Êbleskiver aren’t for breakfast. They’re reserved for Christmastime, which seems like a pity. This was the most special of breakfasts in my family, a treat of treats. I remember Mom working over the cast iron pan with her knitting needle, deftly turning the batter until the buttermilky balls were golden brown. My brothers and I wolfed down the ‘skiver as fast as she could deliver them to the table, mashing them into the piles of cinnamon sugar on our plates. I’m not sure if Mom ever got to eat any, but I have no regrets over my youthful greed. Sorry for not being sorry, Ma.

There’s plenty of Êbleskiver recipes out there, but here’s how my mother, a Viborg, South Dakota native, makes them. To get an idea of the process, view our Êbleskiver-making photo gallery.

∆bleskiver

2 cups buttermilk
2 cups flour
3 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
2 teaspoons sugar

Beat egg yolks. Add sugar, salt and buttermilk, then flour and soda. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites and baking powder. Place small amount of fat in a heated Êbleskiver pan. Fill indentations about 2/3rds full. Turn the batter once or twice to create a more-or-less round ball, cooking until centers are done.