​(Note: A version of this article was originally published in the High Plains Reader, December 30th, 2021. Today is Sankta Luciasdag, so I'm re-posting this in honor of the December 13th holiday. Enjoy!)

​It was 1998. I was in the basement of Elim Lutheran Church in Fargo, putting on a white robe and a tinsel crown. The Swedish Cultural Heritage Society of the Red River Valley (which we all just called the Swedish Society) was celebrating another Sankta Lucia Dag. At age 13, I was still one of the attendants to Lucia. There were usually a lot of us girls, although I was the oldest there that day. And there were always a few star boys, everyone in white smocks or robes. The girls got silver string belts, tinsel crowns, and to carry electric candles. The boys got pointed posterboard hats held on with elastic and spangled with tinfoil stars and a long stick with a silver star on the end. A college student was always Lucia, but this year, the girl who promised, didn’t show. As the oldest girl present, I was immediately elected to fill in, to my chagrin. And my mom’s chagrin, since I had barely dressed up for the occasion, in typical moody teenager style. But I pulled myself together and tried to walk down the church aisle wearing my crown of electric candles and the red sash with my head held high.

Sankta Lucia (also known as Saint Lucy), was an early Christian saint who was credited with relieving a famine in Dalarna, Sweden in the 18th century. She is celebrated in Sweden every December 13th (or thereabouts) with early morning or late evening parades and ceremonies and with lussekatter or Lucia buns – a saffron flavored yeast bun swirled into an S shape with raisins in the curls. But although that’s what the whole world associates with Santka Lucias Dag, that’s not what I remember. Instead, I remember what happened AFTER the Lucia ceremony – gathering in the church basement for coffee (yuck) and about a million different Scandinavian and American Christmas cookies and other treats.

Scores of white-haired ladies in festive sweaters brought paper plates and Tupperware containers laden with pepparkakor, krumkake (which were always protected with crinkled waxed paper to keep them from breaking), sandbakkelse, kringle, rosettes, spritz, almond cake, and other Scandinavian treats alongside more American desserts like molasses crinkles, peanut butter blossoms, sugar cookies, Russian tea cakes, shortbreads, divinity, and fudge. A few savories like lefse, round cinnamon bread spread with Cheese Whiz and a sliced green olive (my favorite, except for the olive), pickled herring, Wasa rye crackers with butter, and super-thin homemade flatbread (which my Norwegian Grandma Eunice made every year at home) were also present. Although I didn’t know it at the time, the fact that I wanted to taste one of everything was a pretty good indicator of a lifelong obsession with food.

Scandinavian baking infused nearly every holiday I can remember. In particular I remember Grandma Eunice’s paper-thin flatbread, frosted tea ring dotted with candied cherries, and fragile spicy pepparkakor, always in star or heart shapes. Family tradition says that if you place a heart-shaped pepparkakor in your palm and press a finger in the middle, if it breaks into three even pieces, you can make a wish. Grandma’s were so thin, it didn’t take much pressure to break them. But although I have fond memories of baking at home, it was those Scandinavian community events that stick with me, and Christmas was bracketed with them – Sankta Lucia Dag before Christmas, and Tjuegondedag Knut after Christmas, in January. Both featured potlucks heavy on the Scandinavian Christmas treats.

About twelve years ago [ed. note - 15 now!] I moved back east to the Hudson Valley of New York. And while I love my life out here, one of the things I miss most from “back home” is the opportunity to be involved in my Scandinavian heritage again. Sure, there’s a Sons of Norway out here, but it’s small and located far from where I live. And it certainly doesn’t have its own building like the one back home in Fargo does! Could I keep the food traditions up myself? I sure could, but going it alone is hard.

I study food professionally now, and so when researching historic Christmas cookie recipes for a lecture, I ran across a gem – “Recipes From Many Lands, Furnished by the North Dakota Homemaker’s Club” compiled by Dorothy Ayers Loudon, and published by Agricultural Extension Division of the North Dakota Agricultural College (now NDSU) in Fargo, North Dakota. Published as Extension Circular 77 in July of 1927, this little cookbook is a treasure trove of immigrant recipes, including Scandinavian ones. And while there is no specific Christmas section, Scandinavian baked goods feature prominently. There are twenty-six different recipes for fattigman, ten different sandbakkels recipes, and multiple recipes each for krumkake, lefse, kringle, rosettes, rice pudding, rommegrot, and others. Not to mention a whole bunch of other recipes, including cakes, breads, meats, and more. Each recipe lists the woman who submitted it and which homemaker’s club she belonged to, and her location. The recipes brought the memories of those Scandinavian community events and their groaning boards rushing back to the surface, and I got terribly homesick.

I think about the women (and occasionally some men) who baked for those events. Did they learn to bake from their parents or grandparents? Did they bake from their own heritage, or learn for a spouse? Did they hone a specialty they took pride in? Did they get joy from sharing their baking with the community, or did they just bring something because they felt obligated? Was the treat they brought a favorite of theirs, or did they make it for someone else? When they saw some teenager filling a plate, did they feel happy, or did they roll their eyes at gluttonous kids?

I’m not a white haired little old lady yet. I’m not widowed (thank goodness) and I’m not retired (sadly). So while I don’t have as much time on my hands as some of those bakers maybe did, it’s not as if I couldn’t keep the traditions. I’ve got the krumkake iron and rolling cone, the sandbakkel tins, I’ve even got a heart-shaped waffle iron. And I do make my split pea soup just like they always did for Tjuegondedag Knut. Maybe this year I’ll dig them out and do them justice, sharing my family traditions with friends, instead of just the folks back home. I don’t always agree with blind adherence to tradition, but traditions can connect us – to the past, to family, to each other.

To that end, I’m sharing two recipes with you. One is old, but new to me. A sandbakkel recipe from “Recipes From Many Lands.” The other is my Grandma Eunice’s flatbread recipe, which was published in the Elim Lutheran Church Centennial Cookbook. Flatbreads aren't as popular as the sugary cookies and other sweet confections. But I could tell the grownups always enjoyed them, and I always ate at least a few every year. While Grandma passed away a few years ago, her recipe lives on. But only someone who has experienced her baking can tell you that the flatbreads have to be so thin they practically break when you pick them up, and they have to be patterned with the weave of the floured pastry cloth she always rolled them out on. And only someone who has tasted them can tell you about their subtle, nutty sweetness. 

That's the thing about keeping traditions - if they aren't passed on from generation to generation, you lose something that can't be conveyed printed in a book. 

1 ¼ c. buttermilk
¾ c. sweet cream
½ c. sugar (scant)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda (scant)
½ c. melted butter
​3 ½ c. flour
​(not listed: whole wheat flour)

Mix together – alternate dry ingredients with liquids. Roll in whole wheat flour. Bake at 400. Roll in small balls and flatten with rolling pin. Roll thin & watch closely. Bake until slightly brown.

1 cup softened butter (2 sticks)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour (plus more to knead)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar together, then add the egg and extract and mix until smooth. Add the flour, a little at a time, until the dough starts to come together, then knead with the hands until smooth. Take half dollar sized pieces of dough and press into the tart tin, pressing the dough all the way out to the edge of the tin, but not over the edges. Make sure to press well to ensure good fluting. The dough is buttery enough that you won't need to grease the tins.

Place tins on a sheet pan and bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool in the tins. ​

​And there ends the original article, but like any good writer and historian, I thought I'd add a few more notes and some context, for folks who don't live in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

If you've never made sandbakkelse before, you're going to need to get some special tins. Bethany Housewares, based in Iowa, makes them (along with tons of other Scandinavian baking tools), and they are conveniently available on Amazon (affiliate link). If you live somewhere in the Midwest, you may be able to find scores of them at thrift stores, which was how my mom amassed her collection, which is now mine.

Scandinavian holiday desserts mostly consist of butter, cream (see: Rommegrot, rice pudding), sugar, white flour, and occasionally some almonds and cinnamon. They're rich and melting and oh-so-delicious. But pepparkokkar and lussekatter aside, they can start to taste a little too alike if you make them all at once. I recommend adding one or two to your holiday baking rotation, and see how they go. Sandbakkelse are extremely easy to make, if you have the tins. And if you don't, try pressing them into muffin tins, or even a pie plate, and see how they go. 

​Happy Sankta Lucias Dag, alle! 

(Note: A version of this article originally appeared as a patrons-only post on Patreon.) 
​
Rømmegrøt is a Norwegian immigrant food that has been part of my life for a very long time. When I was just a baby, my mom told me, she took me to the big annual summer Scandinavian Festival in my hometown. My Grandma Ruby (mom's mom) was visiting and unbeknownst to mom, fed me some rømmegrøt. I was apparently hooked from the start.

Rømmegrøt has all the makings of a good baby food, and is often associated with births and holiday celebrations. Rømmegrøt is a type of flour and cream porridge. Very thick and smooth and rich, it's typically served at Christmastime here in the U.S., although historically it was also served at midsummer and other special occasions. Serious stick-to-your-ribs food, it joins a long line of other, grain-based pudding type dishes throughout Europe. 

In Norway, it is often left out on Christmas Eve as a treat for the nisse - the red-capped house elf who cares for animals and the home during the winter months. Artist Lennart Helje made some of the most famous tomte/nisse paintings around. Nisse are said to be friends with all animals, with special affinity for cats. But I love the Helje paintings featuring foxes the best.

Rømmegrøt in Norway was typically made with soured cream and was more often served with dried meats than cinnamon and sugar (a much later addition). In fact, if we break down the word we get "rømme" or sour cream and "grøt" or porridge. Modern Norwegian recipes usually call for dairy sour cream today. But they have a very different flavor from the kind I grew up with. 

As my mother pointed out, rømmegrøt is easy to make, calorie-rich, and tastes special without costing that much. Typically reserved for very special occasions like Christmas, midsummer, and births, rømmegrøt was also used as a food for new mothers to help build up their strength, which makes sense considering how rich-tasting it is.

In the United States, ready access in the late 19th and early 20th century to refined white flour and sugar made rømmegrøt easy and cheap to make if you kept dairy cows, like my great-grandparents on my mom's side of the family. It's not clear why Scandinavian Americans stopped using sour cream, but my guess is that because most American dairy farmers were sending their milk to cooperative dairies, instead of processing it at home, they had far more access to heavy cream than sour cream. In fact, both sets of my mom's grandparents were dairy farmers, and during the Great Depression, the "cream check" from the dairy was often the only thing keeping the family in store-bought goods. The cows, chickens, and huge kitchen gardens did the bulk of the heavy lifting in feeding families of 11 and 10 children, respectively. 

Although I have eaten rømmegrøt many a time at Scandinavian heritage festivals, those are few and far between out here in the Northeast. So I decided to try my hand at making rømmegrøt from scratch. I decided to use a recipe from the 90th Anniversary Elim Lutheran Church Cookbook, which was the church my grandfather (dad's dad) was pastor at for decades.

This recipe comes from Nellie Anderson and Erna Tronsgard - two ladies I never met, but likely my grandmother Eunice (who also contributed a recipe to this cookbook) knew well. Here's their original recipe:

1 pint heavy cream
1 cup boiling milk
1/2 cup flour

Bring the cream to a boil and boil for 10 min. Sift in flour, reduce heat and stir until thick. In a few minute the butter will separate - remove this and save. Add milk which has been brought to boiling, add a little at a time, stirring hard. This will get smooth. This will get smooth. Now add 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Ladle in dishes, top with cinnamon, sugar, and the butter that was cooked out.

With only three cups of liquid I knew this recipe wouldn't make much, and I wanted to make a big batch, so I doubled the recipe:
1 quart heavy cream (4 cups)
2 cups boiling milk
1 cup flour

I found a few tiny issues with this recipe. The first one is that 1 cup flour seemed like too much, so feel free to make it a scant cup, or add more hot milk. The other is that as you are boiling the cream, you have to keep stirring or it will boil over!

Once you add the flour, you're essentially making a type of roux, which is why a sauce whisk comes in very handy for this type of thing. The key is to keep stirring ​as it keeps cooking and then all of a sudden the mixture will "break" and the butter will automatically cook out by itself! Let the butter keep cooking out and use a deep spoon or small ladle to remove as much as you can (reserve the melted butter for topping later). Then add the hot milk and beat vigorously until smooth - it will look like a very thick white sauce. Then add the salt and sugar which are listed in the instructions, but not the "top" of the recipe measurements. Because the recipe was written by home cooks, not polished, published professionals!

As you can see, mine turned out VERY thick, and it will only thicken more as it sits. I had JUST enough milk left (trying to eat down the fridge before going out of town for the holidays), but I would add more in the future. 

Serve it warm or hot with cinnamon and sugar (pre-mixed is best) and traditionally it's also served with some of the melted butter on top. I find that to be too rich, for me. I like a lot of cinnamon and sugar with mine, as this is not really sweetened at all. But it's nice for people to be able to add theirs to taste. 

No lie, I added more cinnamon and sugar to this bowl after tasting, because even though the recipe calls for a smidge of sugar, it's really not sweet at all. And this is about the serving size you want at it is extremely rich. But some folks like to add the butter back as a topping, and if you were living in dark, frigid, 18th century Norway, you'd probably want all the extra fat you could get in your diet. However, the butter is always too much for me. I've yet to find a decent use for the leftover semi-clarified butter, however. Maybe I just need to use it on bread! Or maybe lefse? But that's a Scandinavian treat tale for another day.

My mother-in-law, who had never had it before, said the flavor reminded her of rice pudding, which it does - creamy and thick and cinnamon-sugary. And rice pudding is super common in Norway and other Scandinavian countries at Christmastime. But rømmegrøt is much older, as rice was not imported to Scandinavia until the 18th century. 

To me, it tasted of nostalgia. Made me think of summer Scandinavian festivals, but still tasted like Christmas and the Midwest. With the advent of central heat, rømmegrøt is definitely not an everyday food, but it still connects us to the past in a way that reading about it never quite does. 

Have you ever had rømmegrøt? What Christmas food traditions in your family bring back fond memories or connect you to your heritage?

​The Food Historian is supported by patrons on Patreon, subscribers on Substack, and people who leave tips. Your support helps keep this blog free and open to everyone. Thank you!

I used to hate gin and tonics. "Bitter, bitter pine trees" I called it (incidentally, somebody please make that their band name). But while plain dry gin and regular tonic are still not my thing, I've become a much bigger fan of gin than I originally thought. In particular, flavored gins, which are so easy to make at home! 

Rhubarb is a favorite in Northern Europe and Scandinavia is no exception. But ultimately rhubarb reminds me of growing up in North Dakota! Also known as "pie plant," the only safe part of the rhubarb plant for humans to eat is the stalk. It gets its sourness from oxalic acid, which is concentrated in the leaves, making them inedible and toxic. But its tartness is part of its charm, as rhubarb is often one of the earliest "fruits" available after winter. 

Although rhubarb is done for the season in much of the United States by July, I was able to rescue some stalks from my mother-in-law's house before they got too dry. June was a busy month for me, so I didn't have much time to turn them into desserts. Gin it was! 

This recipe is pretty straightforward, and makes the most delicious, rhubarb-y gin!

10-16 rhubarb stalks
sugar to coat
dry gin
tonic water

Cut the rhubarb lengthwise into long strips, then cut crosswise into small pieces. Essentially, you want it minced. Add it to a quart jar (about 3 cups) and add sugar to coat, a 1/4 to a half cup. Seal and shake vigorously and let rest at room temperature, shaking occasionally, until the rhubarb gives up its juice. After 12-24 hours, cover with dry gin (I used the tail end of a bottle of Beefeater). Shake well and let rest at room temperature, shaking occasionally, for a day or two before using. The pinker your rhubarb, the pinker the gin. Eventually, the minced rhubarb will lose its color, but it will still taste delicious.

To make the beautiful pink gin into a tonic, pour a finger or two over ice, fill with tonic water, and stir to chill and combine. You don't have to use particularly high-quality gin - the sugar smooths out a lot of the alcoholic burn. But try to use a higher quality tonic than the garden variety. I like Fever Tree. Use the plain tonic for full rhubarb flavor. But if you're feeling extra fancy and adventurous, try it with their Elderflower tonic! The flavor of the rhubarb and the elderflower merge to give almost a grapefruit-y taste. I like both ways! 

Purchases from affiliate links will give The Food Historian a small commission.

Infusing alcohol is one of my favorite ways to "preserve" fruit, and gin is one of the most forgiving. You can make blackberry gin, raspberry gin, and even celery gin! Just add fruit, a little sugar if you want, and let it rest until the gin takes on the color and flavor of whatever you're putting in it. 

This is the last post in my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party series. I hope you enjoyed it! Follow the link to see the whole menu. 

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!

Every good party has at least two beverage options for guests. I like to have one alcoholic, and one non-alcoholic. When I was planning my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party, I knew I wanted something light and refreshing for the non-alcoholic option.

Scandinavians aren't really known for this, but saft is a non-alcoholic fruit juice concentrate that often finds its way onto Scandinavian tables. Saft means "juice" and is a sugar-sweetened concentrate meant to be mixed with water. In a lot of households, water and the concentrate are placed on the table separately, and guests mix their own beverages to taste. 

Saft isn't quite a syrup. Legally, it must contain at least 9% fruit juice. But it's certainly not unsweetened. Historically, the sugar likely acted as a preservative, allowing people to have fruity drinks year-round and preserve some of the summer abundance for the lean times in winter. Access to vitamin C may have also played a role in the creation of saft. Analogs in the United States might be shrub (although that is often made with vinegar) and British cordial (although that is sometimes fortified by alcohol). 

If you've even been to IKEA and had the lingonberry "juice" at the café, you've had saft. Common flavors include strawberry, blackberry, blackcurrant, lingonberry, and elderflower. ElderFLOWER? Yep! Elderflower! Elder plants are common in Europe and have been revered in many ancient cultures for their magical and protective powers. You may have heard that elderberry syrup can be use as an immune booster. But elderflowers were also eaten in early summer. Fried as fritters, made into saft and cordials, steeped in alcohol, and eaten with fish, their strong floral scent has an affinity for honey, lemon, and gooseberries. 

Although elders grow with abundance in Europe, they're a bit more scarce here in the United States. So I did not make my own elderflower syrup, but if you've got access and care to take a stab, here's a recipe to try. 

If you also live in an area that's short on elder bushes and trees, you can purchase syrups online or from your local IKEA or Scandinavian shop. I got Monin brand syrup, which was good (I like all their syrups), but not as good as the "real" Swedish saft, which is hard to find online. Hafi brand elderflower drink concentrate is what to Google, and Hafi is a Swedish preserves brand that has been around since the 1930s. You can find it in some specialty foods stores, too. 

This elderflower punch is delicious, but it has a unique flavor. Some of my party-goers thought it tasted like Pez! I think it's a nice combination and refreshing, but see for yourself.

elderflower syrup
plain seltzer or club soda
ginger ale

In each glass, add about an inch of syrup, then fill halfway with plain seltzer, top off with ginger ale, and give it a good stir to combine the syrup. You can also do it with all plain seltzer, but then it's elderflower soda! 

If you're making it for a crowd, the ratio is about a quarter cup of syrup to one cup each seltzer and ginger ale.

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!

I can take zero credit for coming up with this genius recipe. That 100% goes to Nevada and her North Wild Kitchen, which is where I first found her recipe for rømmegrøt ice cream.

You may be asking yourself, what on earth is rømmegrøt? Rømmegrøt is a traditional Norwegian porridge made from flour and heavy cream, usually served with cinnamon and sugar at Christmastime. The term rømmegrøt means "sour cream porridge," and in Norway the traditional recipe often calls for a mixture of sour cream and milk. But for whatever reason, here in the States, it is almost exclusively made with plain heavy cream. Interestingly, as far as I can tell, the taste is not particularly different, because this ice cream is made with sour cream and it tastes exactly like the rømmegrøt I grew up eating. (If you're interested in the original rømmegrøt, check out my patrons-only post on Patreon, complete with a recipe!)

The "real" rømmegrøt is incredibly rich. The flour makes for a smooth, creamy pudding-like texture and as it cooks with the heavy cream it "splits" and "makes" its own melted butter sauce as the flour binds to the dairy proteins in the heavy cream. Historically its richness made it the perfect food for winter holidays, which is why it is so often associated with Christmas. This is also perhaps why soured cream was used, instead of fresh. Cows generally stop producing milk once their offspring are weaned, so winter is the time a lot of cows would "dry up" until they got pregnant again. If a family only had one cow, it would be impossible to get fresh dairy year-round. 

Rømmegrøt is also a traditional dish for new mothers - the rich but easily digested food helped them recover from the trauma of childbirth, and ensured they got enough calories to keep their babies well-fed. But while this food is, indeed, delicious, eating a rich, stick-to-your-ribs dish in the summer heat is not exactly appealing. Enter the genius rømmegrøt​ ice cream.

I'm giving you this recipe because although Nevada's North Wild Kitchen recipe is marvelous, I tweaked hers just a little. Fair warning that you will need an ice cream maker for this one. (We got this one as a wedding present and love it.)

12 ounces full fat dairy sour cream (1/2 of a 24 ounce carton)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

In a pourable container, mix all ingredients and whisk well to combine (you could stop at this point and just eat the pourable mix with a spoon, and I always lick the bowl). Pour into the ice cream maker and start. When the ice cream is no longer turning over in the maker, it's pretty much done. You can pack it into a freezer container (these are nice) or serve immediately.

Rømmegrøt​ ice cream has a tangy sweet flavor and including the cinnamon in the ice cream makes all the difference, for me. You can eat it on its own, but it also pairs well with apple pie or crisp, blueberry, blackberry, rhubarb, or strawberry desserts, and gingerbread. 

I had originally intended to make a big strawberry rhubarb crisp for the party to go with this ice cream, but ran out of time. And since I made two batches of rømmegrøt​ ice cream in advance, it almost got forgotten altogether! I pulled it out last minute for anyone who had room for a little more dessert. While everyone enjoyed it, I think I was the only one who had ever tasted rømmegrøt​ before, so perhaps it's slightly less of a delight without the taste memories to work with. I guess this just means I'll have to throw a Scandinavian Christmas party to introduce everyone to the joys of original rømmegrøt​!

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!

Nothing says midsummer to me like creamy, cold, Swedish rice pudding with raspberry sauce on top, so I knew this had to be one of the desserts I made for my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party, as it's one of my favorite desserts. Rice pudding is very typically a Scandinavian Christmas dish, but I grew up eating it much more often at midsummer than any other time of year. Our local Swedish Society would always make vats of it (and still does!) for the Scandinavian Festival in my hometown every year. Although I've been offered it in the past, I sadly don't have that original recipe! So I did the best I could doctoring up my favorite recipe for rice pudding, and it turned out better than I imagined, so I'm not sure I'll ever go back. 

Scandinavia has a long history of porridge - grains cooked in water or milk - and the stick-to-your-ribs-ness of porridge spills over into holiday traditions. Christmas was an especially important time to consume a lot of calories, not only to celebrate, but to keep warm. But rice is not native to Scandinavia, so what gives? This article gives a great overview of the history of Christmas rice pudding in Scandinavia in general, but suffice to say that, like most European Christmas traditions, it all goes back to the Medieval period and expensive imports from the Far East. Rice replaced locally grown grains like barley and its relative expense and scarcity joined other imported goods like cinnamon (and ginger, black pepper, and cardamom), sugar, raisins, and almonds supplemented by butter, cream, and milk to make up the bulk of holiday ingredients for what are now traditional Scandinavian treats. As Swedes got wealthier and rice and sugar got cheaper and more widely available, rice pudding became more of a year-round treat. 

In the Midwest, you're more likely to find people with memories of eating "glorified rice" (basically a rice and cool whip "salad" with canned fruit, especially maraschino cherries) outside of the holidays than cold rice pudding. But although I also loved glorified rice growing up, it is the taste of creamy, cold, eggless rice pudding topped with sweet-tart raspberry sauce that brings back so many fond memories. It doesn't hurt that it's absolutely delicious. 

This is a very straightforward recipe, with just a few changes from my original version. I also did 1.5 times the original recipe, as I knew I was serving a crowd. We still had quite a bit leftover, but I didn't mind in the least, and the leftovers disappeared after just a few days.

1 1/2 cups arborio rice (also known as "pudding rice" or "risotto rice")
9 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup golden raisins
1 cinnamon stick
1+ cups heavy cream
1 bag frozen raspberries, thawed
sugar

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, combine the rice, sugar, raisins, cinnamon stick, and milk, and give it a stir to make the rice separate. Bring the pot to a near-boil (the milk goes from flat to boiling over in an instant, so keep an eye on it!), stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking/burning, then reduce the heat to a low simmer and continue to cook, stirring occasionally at first and more frequently later on until most of the milk is absorbed and the remaining liquid has thickened into a sauce. Because you want to serve this chilled, leave it to be fairly soupy, as the rice will continue to absorb liquid as it cools. 

Once the pudding is cool and you are ready to serve it, add the now very-thick rice pudding to a very large bowl (I used one closer in size to a punch bowl than a mixing bowl) and with a wooden spoon stir in heavy cream until the rice pudding is soft and creamy again. Open the bag of raspberries and add a few tablespoons of sugar and stir to combine. You can do this before you add the heavy cream to the rice pudding so that the thawed raspberries have time to macerate in the sugar. 

When ready to serve, top the extra-creamy rice pudding with the raspberries and devour. You probably won't have the same memories I do, but your tastebuds will thank you. 

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!

For a lot of Norwegian-Americans, sandbakkels (the plural in Norwegian is actually sandbakkelse, but we can Americanize) remind them of Christmas. The crisp, buttery cookies are essentially dense tart shells, similar to shortbread, but more crumbly. Meaning "sand pastry," sandbakkels are baked in special fluted tins and contain either ground almonds or more commonly in the U.S., almond extract. 

Despite the fact that they are usually served plain here in the states, those little tart shells just begged to be filled. So when I was planning my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party, I thought they would make the perfect little dessert. The problem was, what recipe to use? 

One of my best-loved talks is on the history of Christmas cookies, and I've got a whole section on Scandinavian ones. So I turned to my former research and remembered the PAGES of sandbakkel recipes from Recipes from Many Lands, a little cookbook of recipes submitted by North Dakota housewives and home economists around the state and published in July, 1927 as Circular 77 of the Agricultural Extension Division of North Dakota State University.

I've clipped all the Sandbakkelse recipes (also Americanized to "Sand Tarts") and posted them below.

The vast majority of these recipes are very similar - almost all call for a mixture of butter and lard, sugar, an egg or two, almond extract, and flour. The instructions are usually quite vague. Some don't even include amounts of flour. Some just say to press into tins and bake. So I decided to take the best advice from all the recipes and the Swedish Sandbakkelse recipe (which actually had measurements for everything) and go from there. 

But first, I had to find my sandbakkel tins! At some point I either stole them from my mother (she always had too many and never used them), but I had a little original box of vintage sandbakkel tins in mint condition hiding in the bottom of a kitchen drawer. Alas, I only had a dozen of them, so I had to make due with the recipe in other ways, which you'll see below. But how cute is this box? With the original hardware store price tag!

The recipe is pretty straightforward, and if you don't have sandbakkel tins, never fear! There's a hack suggested in the historic recipes that I'll outline below.

1 cup softened butter (2 sticks)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour (plus more to knead)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar together, then add the egg and extract and mix until smooth. Add the flour, a little at a time, until the dough starts to come together, then knead with the hands until smooth. Take half dollar sized pieces of dough and press into the tart tin, pressing the dough all the way out to the edge of the tin, but not over the edges. Make sure to press well to ensure good fluting. The dough is buttery enough that you won't need to grease the tins.

Place tins on a sheet pan and bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool in the tins. 

Uhoh - you've still got a ton of dough left, and your sandbakkel tin set only came with 12 tins! What do you do? Well dear reader, you follow the advice of those sage 1920s North Dakota farm wives, who maybe didn't have sandbakkel tins either, and you press the dough into a pie plate, and bake it that way. And instead of filling the adorable individual tarts with jam and whipped cream, you fill a whole pie worth and cut it into slices to serve. Easy peasy! You could probably also use muffin tins, in a pinch. But the fluting is the pretty part, so if you can find sandbakkel tins, use them!

I actually took a fair number of photos this time, so enjoy the process via the power of film:

In all, the sandbakkelse were among the easiest of the Scandinavian cookies to make. Which is probably why in Norway they are traditionally the first Christmas cookie that kids help make. But they're not just for Christmas! They were delightful as a summer treat. You could also fill them with pastry cream, fresh fruit, chocolate, or whatever you like! But berry jam and whipped cream felt the most appropriate for Midsummer.

If you'd like to buy your own sandbakkelse tins, Bethany Housewares makes the round kind, and you can get the fancy shapes from Norpro. And if you are a whipped cream fiend like my husband (and to a lesser extent me), and you admired the pretty piping, I can't recommend enough getting a professional, reusable whipped cream dispenser. We love this one. When you factor in buying the heavy cream and the nitrous oxide cartridges, they're not much cheaper than buying the disposable cans, but the whipped cream is some of the best you'll ever taste and you waste a lot less packaging. Plus the cream, once charged, keeps in the fridge for as long as the heavy cream was good. A little shake and it restores to fluffy deliciousness. Happy baking, happy eating!

If you purchase anything from the links, The Food Historian gets a small commission!

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!

These were, shockingly, the runaway smash hit of my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party. And here I thought no one would like them! But they were the first to go of the open-faced sandwiches on offer and the only ones to have every last sandwich devoured. I probably should have made more...

You may be asking yourself, what the heck is a "Ski Queen Brunost Open-Faced Sandwich?" Dear reader, Ski Queen is a brand of brunost widely available here in the United States. And what exactly is brunost? And how is it different from gjetost? Did you even know you needed the answers to these questions? 

Brunost is literally Norwegian for "brown cheese," and it is a very special, very specific style of cheese that is not really a cheese at all. Made from caramelized whey, this super-smooth, sweet and salty cheese can be made from either cow's milk whey (brunost) or goat's milk whey (gjetost).

Whey-based cheeses, or mysost, date back over 2,000 years in Scandinavia, with the earliest evidence found on Jutland, Denmark. Going back hundreds of years, Norwegian dairy farmers perfected the use of whey, the milky yellow liquid leftover from processing butter. The original brown cheese, mysost, was literally just whey boiled until all the water evaporated and it caramelized into a sweet, grainy, fudge-like substance. But brunost is cow's milk whey that has cream and milk added in, which makes it creamy, smooth, and addictive. This addition is attributed to dairywoman Anne Hov, who helped revive the failing dairy industry in Gudbrandsdalen, Norway, in the 1860s. Later variations included goat's milk (gjetost) and "ekte gjetost" or "real goat cheese" is a brown whey cheese made from only goat's milk whey and goat's milk - it has a much stronger flavor than brunost and a sweet-salty tang. 

Brunost was typically served with open-faced sandwiches, on Norwegian heart-shaped waffles, or eaten plain as a snack. Modern cooks have used it in all sorts of ways, but one of my favorites is a creamy gjetost sauce for chicken. 

Today, most commericial brunost is produced by Tine - a Norwegian dairy cooperative that started in the 1850s and is named after the special bentwood boxes Norwegians used to store butter in the days before refrigeration. Tine also produces Jarlsberg. In the United States, you can get the cow's milk brunost and goat's milk ekte gjetost under the Ski Queen brand, so named because of the association in Norway of brunost with skiing, since brunost holds its shape under a wide range of temperatures, and its sweetness and fat helped replenish energy after a long day of skiing.

This really will win converts. If you want to be bold, have a tasting of both the milder, sweeter brunost and bolder gjetost. 

thinly sliced buttered rye
sliced brunost
a dollop of strawberry jam

You'll need your ostehøvel to get appropriately thin slices - a knife will be too thick. Make sure to get high quality strawberry jam - not too sweet, not too thick (my favorite is Welch's natural strawberry). 

These little sandwiches are basically like grownup candy. You can see why they are so popular in Norway and why almost everyone who tries it loves brunost. Have you ever tried it?

​​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!

When planning the menu for my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party, I wanted to make sure to have some sandwiches hearty enough to stand in for dinner. We can't all subsist on salads and dessert! But while these sandwiches are decidedly NOT friendly to folks who don't eat pork or meat (always make sure all guests can eat!), they are delicious and worth a try for those of you who do eat pork.

Although many people don't realize it, ham is quintessentially Scandinavian. It is a popular Christmas and Easter dish, and the Danish pork industry supplies most of Continental Europe. We always had ham for Easter growing up, and sometimes for Christmas, too (along with Swedish meatballs). It's also a popular sandwich meat in the United States, where deli-style hams are very similar to those produced in Denmark. 

Jarlsberg is also a popular Scandinavian cheese here in the U.S. A Swiss-style cheese introduced to the dairy farms of Jarlsberg, Norway in the 1850s, it had disappeared by the 20th century. In the 1950s, scientists at the Agricultural University of Norway were intrigued by a graduate student's paper on the historic cheeses of Vestfold, Norway (where Jarlsberg is located) and set about to recreate the historic Swiss-style cheese.

Rich and very butter, with extra-large holes, Jarlsberg is coated in red wax and the details of its production are a trade secret. 

Combining the two on pumpernickel rye with a dollop of lingonberry jam seemed like a match made in heaven, and I was right.

Lingonberries, also sometimes known as partridgeberries or cow berries, are a relative of the cranberry. Lingonberries are native to the boreal forests of Scandinavia and the rest of Northern Europe, Russia, Alaska, Canada, etc. Tiny and tart, they feature heavily in Scandinavian cuisine, especially with game meats and in desserts and drinks. If you can't find lingonberry jam, you can substitute cranberry sauce, but it won't be the same.

thinly sliced sturdy pumpernickel bread
butter
shaved natural ham
Jarlsberg cheese
lingonberry jam or preserves

Butter a slice of pumpernickel or rye bread thinly, edge-to-edge, and top with a slice or two of natural (I prefer bone-in) ham. Add a slice or two of Jarlsberg on top (use a Norwegian osthovel for best results!) and top with a small spoonful of lingonberry jam.

The salty, fattiness of the ham, the buttery taste of the Jarlsberg, and the acid sweetness of the lingonberry jam work just wonderfully together. Plus they're pretty, too!

​You can serve these as part of a smorgasbord, like I did, or alone for a fancy lunch. The bread tends to dry out if left out too long, so if you have any party leftovers, be sure to seal and refrigerate to ensure freshness. I like to make the leftover open-faced sandwiches (if there are any!) closed by simply placing to of them together, open faces in! 

​​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!

Salmon is a classic Scandinavian dish. Spring salmon runs up the fjords and rivers of Scandinavia from late May/early June through most of the summer. Salmon is eaten fresh, but it is also made into gravlax, a mild cold-cured dish made by burying whole salmon filets in a mixture of salt, sugar, and herbs.

Salmon also features in many New England summer traditions, including Fourth of July menus, which consisted largely of salmon, new potatoes, and fresh peas. Historically, as with many springtime fish runs, salmon was inexpensive and easy to obtain, both in the United States and Scandinavia. Not so anymore.

I wanted to serve salmon at my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party, but I was also short on time and feeding a crowd. I decided against the more intensive prep of a poached or grilled salmon filet and settled on the easier and more wallet-friendly canned salmon instead. I use the smaller tins of sustainably harvested wild-caught salmon that don't contain any skin or bones. 

The inspiration for this recipe came from a historic one I saw a while ago. Linda Hull Larned's One Hundred Picnic Suggestions cookbook, published in 1915, had a recipe for Salmon Salad which called for the use of rice, but offered an alternative of hard boiled eggs and cucumber. Since I was already making deviled eggs, I decided to go a little lighter and use just cucumber. 

This recipe makes a lot of sandwiches (enough for all of the ones pictured above), so feel free to cut the recipe in half if you're serving fewer people.

2 cans (5 oz. each) salmon
1 cup finely chopped English cucumber
2 scallions, sliced
fresh dill, minced
lemon juice or white wine vinegar
salt 
pepper
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
mayonnaise


Drain and flake the salmon, then stir in the cucumber, scallions, and fresh dill. Add salt and pepper and a splash or two of lemon juice or white wine vinegar and toss to coat. Stir in Dijon mustard and mayonnaise to coat. Serve on thin slices of fine-grained but sturdy white bread (I used semolina batard). You should probably butter your bread slices - I didn't, thinking the mayonnaise was moist enough, but they got a little soggy! You could also serve on toast or with water crackers. 

If you can't find or don't like salmon, you could certainly substitute tuna. But if you don't generally like tuna salad, give salmon salad a try! It is milder-tasting and the cucumbers give a refreshing crunch. 

If you wanted to be extra-fancy, you could certainly also use leftover grilled, poached, or roasted salmon, flaked, although be aware that most modern salmon filets are going to be fattier than canned salmon, so keep that in mind, flavor-wise. 

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!