More stuff about the Vikings...

[lph]

Lutefisk is awful stuff, so I sure wouldn't eat it without quantities of akevitt I'm American/Norwegian, brought up in Norway by, uh, untraditional parents, so I managed to avoid lutefisk throughout my childhood. Most people do eat it though, with joy, so one Christmas I decided to be brave and go eat lutefisk with my colleagues. They all told me of the wonderful "tilbehør", side-dishes - melted butter, sweet goat's cheese, crispy bacon, stewed peas. They were right, the side-dishes were great. The lutefisk was still horrible

It's normally eaten indoors in quite fine restaurants, not an easy dish to serve outdoors. Besides it would get cold within minutes.

Yup, eating out is expensive, but still a lot cheaper than it used to be, with lots more cheap restaurants now. Norwegians home-cook a lot more than Americans, I think. But basically wages are higher.

Oh, and reindeer is excellent meat. We eat it a lot, it's plentiful, very tasty even though it has little fat, and it's ecofriendly.

Yup, shootingstar, the Vikings were a very violent bunch. I don't feel any need to identify too much with them... but their mythology is pretty cool, and a nice balance to the Greek/Roman.

zoom-zoom - do you know where your ancestors came from?