Category: Lefse

Ross Hanson (above left) and Galen Tongen are reigning champs of the National Lefse Cookoff, which is a highlight each year of the Potato Days Festival in Barnesville, Minnesota. I wrote about the Cookoff in Keep On Rolling! Life on the Lefse Trail and Learning to Get a Round. Hanson and Tongen defend their title next Friday, August 23, 2024, from 1 to 3 pm. Oh, the pressure!

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, so these Ole Rollers are, as you can plainly see in the photos, practically crippled with concerns that they can repeat as champs. But they train — oh, they train — determined to once again create that perfect round of lefse. Recently, I traveled to their Lefse Training Camp in Waconia, Minnesota, to get an idea of what it is like to experience the thrill of victory — they are the national champs! — as well as the agony of dealing daily with the demons of doubt. Can they do it again?

Last year at the Potato Days Festival, I was a vendor and could not get over to the National Lefse Cookoff. But in the afternoon when the Cookoff was over, a customer came to my tent and said I gotta see these guys who won. They were really good!

Well, a year later I got to see the winners, Ross Hanson and Galen Tongen, aka the Ole Rollers, at their Lefse Training Camp. Here is an inside look at this humorous and sorta humble duo.

I asked them how they got going with making lefse. They said their church started a fundraiser in 1981, selling lefse made by congregation members.

HANSON: Originally, the fellas who started this were pretty serious. They were actually trying to make lefse at this Lucia Festival. I thought it would be fun to enliven it and asked if I could join in making lefse. They said sure and we introduced a lot of new products. We found other uses for lefse. I had a stapler for a shoe because lefse is resistant to barnyard acid, and we would staple a piece of lefse to a leaky boot, as you might expect. An empty roll of toilet paper was always a disaster in the home when you had guests, and so you always wanted to keep a little lefse on hand. And then we put Galen in charge of R & D, and that brain of his started working and he came up with a whole lot of really great products. You show him, Galen.

TONGEN: For example, we have DAB-A-DOUGH. It’s for when you are craving lefse but don’t have the dough mixed up. This is the dough mixed up for when you want a dab of dough. The beauty is you can use a standard caulk gun with that. You just squeeze a little on your rolling surface and roll it out. It’s just wonderful. And it keeps well, too. You know, this one tube has kept for around 35 years.

HANSON: I grew up with lefse with mom and dad in Thief River Falls, Minnesota.

TONGEN: I grew up in Montevideo, Minnesota. Grandma Tongen made lefse, but I didn’t make it until 1987. Ross and I met through church. Actually, we met at a Halloween party. My wife and I dressed up as Ole and Lena, and we had a whole array of jokes to tell that night. I put on my Ole shtick, and Ross and Jan were there, and he grabbed ahold of that and we’ve been together ever since. First time I made lefse was right here in Ross’s barn, where a group of guys roll lefse and make sausage for the church fundraiser one big night in early December.

HANSON: Over 40 years now, we’ve contributed more than $20,000 to a church fund by making and selling lefse and sausage.

LEGWOLD: What has this last year been like? Did you have a tour, a lot of offers coming over the phone? What kind of experience have you had with your fame and fortune as the lefse champs?

HANSON: Crickets. It just never caught on.

TONGEN: Well, we got a lot of local notoriety. We made the local paper, The Waconia Patriot.

LEGWOLD: Why did you enter a lefse contest?

HANSON: We thought it would be fun. It turned out to be worth the drive of 2 ½ hours to Barnesville. I figured our lefse was really good because of the ingredients and such. People really like it compared to other options.

TONGEN: I know that the judge at Barnesville confided that there was no lefse that was close.

HANSON: I could see the faces of the competing teams, and there was severe disappointment.

LEGWOLD: There are a lot of people who make good lefse, but they don’t enter a national contest. Wasn’t there a lot of pressure?

HANSON: Oh, it was unbelievable!

LEGWOLD: Did you sleep the week before, the night before?

HANSON: Not the night before. No, no. I was up all night working on picking out potatoes and so forth. But you know, I never expected us to win. I figured it would just be fun.

LEGWOLD: Did you take your dough with you or make it there?

HANSON: No, we made it here and in the drive up there kept it in a big cooler in the morning. We floured it up a half hour before the contest started and had an hour to make lefse and then choose our best one.

LEGWOLD: Did you feel intimidated?

TONGEN: Uh, no. I think we were the intimidators. We had the shtick going in there, and we were talking smack.

HANSON: It was a little overwhelming for them when I put up the neon lefse sign. But we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, right, Galen?

TONGEN: Absolutely!

HANSON: No, everyone was in a good mood and friendly. People were tasting each other’s lefse, sharing, talking about ingredients, and watching each other make it. But you know, I was just shocked! Some of these people didn’t use butter! They used oil! I couldn’t believe it.

LEGWOLD: What kind of oil? 10W-30 or what?

HANSON (laughing): I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Some sort of vegetable oil. I knew there was no chance for them. I shared with them, “You gotta use butter!” I love this Millerville Butter and Hope Butter. They remind us of the old butter we had at home as a kid. It’s saltier and you can barely cut it.

LEGWOLD: So both you and Galen rolled? How did you team up in that hour of ultimate pressure?

HANSON: We had made a batch of dough and each took turns rolling a round. We kept track of the ones that we thought looked most perfect, most round.

LEGWOLD: And you had an hour to pick one?

HANSON: Yep.

LEGWOLD: The one you picked, was it one you rolled early in the hour or later.

HANSON: Later. And it was Galen’s. I remember that.

TONGEN: But I must say, as far as ingredients go, Ross, being a procurement guy in his career, is never satisfied until he finds each and every ingredient to be the absolute best that he can locate. That’s a big part of it.

LEGWOLD: Have you felt that you’ve been groomed for this all your life for this, like you are the Chosen Ones who have made it to this golden field of champions?

HANSON (laughing): Yes.

TONGEN (also laughing): He’s the chosen one.

LEGWOLD: Has it been hard to keep your humility this year? You are the champs!

HANSON: We’re Norwegian. Of course it’s not difficult to maintain our humility. There’s always someone better.

LEGWOLD: Do you feel like you are marked now that you are known as the champs? Are “they” coming after you?

HANSON: We’ll find out. We’ll see who shows up for the next contest.

LEGWOLD: You have talked about your shtick. Did you strategize that you needed a shtick, or was your lefse good enough on its own?

HANSON: No, we did not do the shtick until we were introduced as winners. We were in a good mood during the contest, chatting and such. But we didn’t do our shtick until afterward. And then they were agape, slack jawed when we did our shtick. Like with the DAB-A-DOUGH, they weren’t sure we were joking. They were kinda looking at us and not necessarily laughing. I think they thought maybe we were serious. However, we didn’t go long. Brevity is the soul of wit. Leave  ‘em wanting more.

TONGEN: We had the sign. We had the gear, the Viking hats with the horns, slacks with white shirts and bow ties. And we were talking, not that we did our shtick, but we were talking with a little accent and kinda carrying on.

LEGWOLD: I must say that knowing you two and your humor, I thought, “Well, these guys may be a bit light on the lefse and heavy on the shtick.” But the shtick didn’t come until later, so you impressed me with letting your lefse speak for itself. (Editor’s note: I ate a lefse round made by the Ole Rollers, and it was excellent. Tender and tasty.)

LEGWOLD: Galen, how is it working with Ross?

TONGEN: Fun. Ross and I get along so well. We are best pals. He’s an attention-to-detail guy. He’s the crux of this. It starts with Ross. We make a good team and we’ve had so much fun through the years. Too much laughing — that’s probably our problem!

LEGWOLD: When you rolled “the one,” did you know it was the winner?

TONGEN: No, I had lots of good ones. So when we were done, we just had to pick the one that was the roundest.

HANSON: Have we mentioned the Lefse Hall of Fame at our church? No? Well, every pastor who leaves the church and moves on gets inducted into our Lefse Hall of Fame. And the Keeper of the Dead Spud Scrolls reads the official induction message.

TONGEN: We’ve inducted four or five pastors now into our Lefse Hall of Fame at church. We all march in with our horns on and carrying the scrolls.

LEGWOLD: This is bringing tears to my eyes. Quite a solemn event!

TONGEN: I think I wrote the first scroll and then kept re-adapting it and adding new material. Really fun.

LEGWOLD: Ross, how is it working with Galen?

HANSON (laughing): It could be worse. Can’t complain. He’s the creative genius here, I tell you. His sense of humor has translated into some real good stuff.

LEGWOLD: Do you feel you have to raise your game for this year’s Cookoff?

HANSON: Oh, that shouldn’t be much of a problem. One of the guys who is part of the barn lefse-making crew for our church fundraiser is always experimenting making zucchini lefse and squash lefse and such. None of us like it, but he has fun and we pretend that we like it. Anyway, he and his wife are going to compete against us. So that’ll be fun.

LEGWOLD: What is involved in your training?

HANSON (inhales flour and is coughing): One of the big problems, of course, is lefse lung. (Cough, cough, laugh, laugh). We are constantly battling lefse lung, oh my!

LEGWOLD: So you must pay more in health insurance then.

HANSON (still coughing and laughing): That we do, right Galen?

LEGWOLD: It’s clear that your humor is key to handling the immense pressure you’re facing in preparation for your return to Barnesville as the reigning National Lefse Cookoff champs. Can you disclose anything that you are planning in order to win again?

HANSON: Yeah, this next contest is going to be a challenge. I’m not sure we are ready to share. We still have to plan how we’re going to bring our game up. The truth is the lefse is probably not going to change. The lefse is there. The dough is there just waiting for hands to turn it into a work of art.

LEGWOLD: It must be thrilling thinking about your triumphant return to Barnesville next Friday.

HANSON: I don’t know, Galen. Are your feeling it? What’s it going to be like walking into that church dining hall this year?

TONGEN: Oh boy, all eyes are going to be on the Ole Rollers!

HANSON: That’s right everybody! The Ole Rollers are back!

The Lefse Limerick People’s Choice Award is for the author of the best of the rest of the lefse limericks that were not penned by the 4th Annual Lefse Limerick Contest champion. You, the readers, voted to determine who wins the People’s Choice Award.

The winner for the second straight year is Jim Leet, shown above, from Roseburg, Oregon! Congrats! Jim wins a Keep On Rolling Tote Bag Oat.

Jim has been prolific in writing lefse and lutefisk limericks over the years. He doesn’t submit an email with one or two limericks; he submits a Word doc containing scores of limericks, with a note: “Don’t hesitate to award me more than one place…” When I responded that I liked his confidence, he replied by batting away my compliment with this: “Thanks, but it conflicts with my legendary modesty.”

Jim has an original way of looking at things, and no surprise that it comes out in his limericks. Here are three that gathered the most votes for Jim:

If lefse’s your favorite food
Enhancing your Norse attitude
Your passion for rounds
As strange as it sounds
Just makes you a lovable dude

If spicy food is your desire
Then lefse won’t give you that fire
But lifting your soul
Right out of life’s hole
With lefse you’ll hear angels’ choir

The Hammer of God was with Thor
According to old Viking Lore
With Mjolnir to pound
Those thin lefse rounds
They made all in Valhalla roar!

Jim Leet

Dave Nadaskay

Another prolific lefse limerick writer is Dave Nadaskay from Fort Worth, Texas, shown below. Just about every day in March, Dave emailed at least one limerick. Toward the end of the month, he added a note to his email saying that it was his last limerick — only to submit more the next day. When he was tapped out, he wrote: “This was a lot of fun!”

This was Dave’s first lefse limerick contest. He wins the Let’s Make Lefse! Jigsaw Puzzle.

Here are three limericks that gathered the most votes for Dave:

My love for lefse I’m admittin’
But all other food habits I’m quittin’
Lefse brings my life joy
And quells all that annoy
But my clothes, they are no longer fittin’

A Viking in Asgard did ponder
How on earth did they make such a wonder 
Lefse tastes so delicious
I’m sure it grants wishes
And leaves me with no need to plunder

If you’re forced to live up in the snow
Just roll out some blest tater dough
Like a cozy old sweater
Lefse makes the heart better
And warms up your soul til you glow

Dave Nadaskay

Wrapping up the 4th Annual Lefse Limerick Contest, it’s been a great one! Congrats again to John Ziegenhagen, who won, and to the People’s Choice Award winners Jim Leet and Dave Nadaskay. To the victors belong the spoils, but to all who wrote limericks this year goes my respect and gratitude. I tip my hat and smile. You provided great wit and joy.

The Lefse Limerick People’s Choice Award is for the author of the best of the rest of the lefse limericks that were not penned by the 4th Annual Lefse Limerick Contest champion. You, the readers, vote to determine who wins the prizes for the People’s Choice Award winner. The prizes are:

Below are 33 pretty dang good lefse limericks worthy of winning the above prizes. The lefse limericks are listed by number only, not by name. Take your time in reading, and then vote for the number of your three most favorite limericks. You can vote for your own limerick and two other limericks by someone else. Vote simply by emailing me at glegwold@lutefisk.com and make sure you vote by end of day May 3, 2024.

Here are the 33 lefse limericks eligible for the People’s Choice Award. Email me at glegwold@lutefisk.com by end of day May 3, 2024, and include the numbers of your three favorites.

1. 
If you’re ever in need of a purative
Eat lefse, I say, most assurative
You just can’t be sad
When it’s lefse you had
For your life it’s the best kind of curative

2. 
If lefse’s your favorite food
Enhancing your Norse attitude
Your passion for rounds
As strange as it sounds
Just makes you a lovable dude

3. 
When cold weather has taken its toll
I give comfort to body and soul
With a soothing warm round
And advice very sound --
Life ls lefse, let's get on a roll!

4. 
My love for lefse I’m admittin’ 
But all other food habits I’m quittin’ 
Lefse brings my life joy
And quells all that annoy
But my clothes, they are no longer fittin’

5. 
Jack clasped his lefse dearly
As a robber stated quite clearly
“See I’ve got this knife,
It’s your lefse or your life”
Jack paused to think over this query

6. 
A crusty old German named Lest
Ate sausage with gusto and zest
Till the day he met Hesta
And tasted her lefse
His lunch and his life were both blessed.

7. 
A viking in Asgard did ponder
How on earth did they make such a wonder 
Lefse tastes so delicious 
I’m sure it grants wishes
And leaves me with no need to plunder

8. 
Your life’s at the end of its rope
Fresh lefse will help you to cope
Your spirit will soar
You’ll always want more
And never again will you mope

9. 
Christmas pudding is heavy like lead
And lutefisk looks and smells dead.
To make spirits bright
Roll a circle just right
And let “lefse joy” fill up your head.

10. 
Lefse is life, so they say,
And I eat it up every day,
Sav’ry or sweet,
It just can’t be beat,
Flavored and rolled any way!

11. 
There once was a viking named Viddel
Who traded his sword for a griddle
He made lefse with butter
Without missing his cutter
And was happily round in the middle

12. 
Lefse like life can be tragic
Not every batch turns out like magic
When your dough feels like glue
And you haven’t a clue
How to fix it, that’s problematic

13. 
First add butter and spread with a knife
Then a sprinkle of sugar, just right.
Each bite soon melts away
All the gloom of the day.
We like to say, "Lefse is Life".

14. 
Is lefse much better than sex?
The question is rather complex
Depends on the day
And what you might say
The answer is certain to vex

15. 
Lusty Lillian lefse rolled
Mate Olaf is dying she’s told
Since lefse is life
He begged of his wife
Feed me lefse before I go cold

16. 
I believe that I need a good rest 
And lefse will make it the best 
The answer I was told
Is buttered then rolled
And my life would forever be blessed

17. 
It is certainly life's little joys
That quiet the sadness and noise.
A filled coffee cup
Or some lefse rolled up
As balms they're the real McCoys.

18. 
If you’re forced to live up in the snow
Just roll out some blest tater dough
Like a cozy old sweater
Lefse makes the heart better
And warms up your soul til you glow.

19. 
It's some work but it's worth it to make.
Your reward for the trouble you take
Is the finest of fare
For that feeling you share…
Life is lefse…believe…and partake.

20. 
Ancestors live on, at our table
Lefse traditions keep us stable
But lefse carbs count,
Belly fat does mount!
So exercise too, when you're able!

21. 
When you happen to need some relief
From life’s worry and toil and grief
Eat some lefse for livin’ 
Like a sinner forgivin’ 
And then cook up some more and repeat
 
22. 
If spicy food is your desire
Then lefse won’t give you that fire
But lifting your soul
Right out of life’s hole
With lefse you’ll hear angels’ choir

23. 
A lefse cook once told me “Son,
To pursue a good life simply won,
Eat your lefse twice nightly
And live your life rightly
And always make time to have fun.”

24. 
Shakespeare explored man’s condition
Beethoven, made music his mission
Then there was Ole and Sven
Two good Norskie men
Great lefse, their highest ambition

25. 
The Hammer of God was with Thor
According to old Viking Lore
With Mjolnir to pound
Those thin lefse rounds
They made all in Valhalla roar!

26. 
Loving lefse is all that I need
To make living well my daily creed.
It isn’t a stretch
To make me go fetch
Another round of this fine feed.

27. 
If lefse’s the joy of your life
Be careful in choosing a wife
Or make it yourself
With help from an elf
And shortstop some possible strife

28. 
Ole milked his cows in the snowstorm
But the drifts trapped him inside the barn.
He'd packed "lefse to go"
Well ahead of the snow
And it saved him until it got warm.

29. 
They say lefse can cure a cold heart
And your love, it will never depart 
You’ll both be much warmer
If you’re the prince charmer
With lefse as your Cupid’s dart

30. 
You can feed me a line but don't try it.
I know what I need when I spy it.
You can have your square meal --
The well rounded appeal
Of my lefse will do as life's diet.

31. 
There once was a tater that mused
“I don’t want to be mashed and abused!
Unless lefse’s the goal
And to cure a sad soul
In which case I’m greatly enthused!”

32. 
If lefse’s the soul of existence
Its useless to put up resistance
The rounds that you love
Were sent from above
Rewards for your fervent persistence

33. 
In MN, where lefse's a delight,
We roll it thin and cook it right.
Butter and sugar so sweet,
It's a treat you can't beat,
Lefse life in MN, makes my pants tight!

Again, email me at glegwold@lutefisk.com by May 3, 2024, with the numbers of your favorite three. The People’s Choice Award winners will be named in the May newsletter. Good luck, all!

And the winner is … John Ziegenhagen of St. Louis Park, Minnesota!

John entered the contest late this year, and I was worried that his deep, deep limerick well had run dry. But on the last day of accepting limericks, John sent a Word doc of 15 limericks under the cryptic title of “The Lost Limerick Scrolls”. His email simply said,

“I got on a religious kick that I couldn’t lick.”

John

Well, after reading these 15 shimmering limericks, I am certainly glad John found the lost limerick scrolls. The limericks are good, very good. Champion good!

At first I wondered if John had simply found them and not written them. Oh, dear! However, he assured me that in this “religious kick that he couldn’t lick” he saw the light that helped him find his true center — where he sensed the message: “Lefse is life.” In his epiphany on the final day to enter the limerick contest, he dashed off to me these 15 limericks. The rest is history.

Here are three of the limericks, the combination that won John the championship of the 4th Annual Lefse Limerick Contest:

At Communion we used to have bread
But our new pastor served lefse instead.
I’m not going to libel,
It’s right in the Bible.
“Lefse is life,” Jesus said.
 
Brother Lazarus was ready to die
As Jesus was just passing by.
“Wake up, you old geezer.
Become a believer.
‘Cause lefse will make you so spry.”
 
Old Moses, he climbed up that hill.
He admitted it gave him a thrill.
It wasn’t the commandments
That held such enchantments.
‘Twas the lefse God made on His grill.

John Ziegenhagen

John is the first repeat champion of the Lefse Limerick Contest, having won the first contest in 2021. Here is the full list of past champions:

• 2024 – John Ziegenhagen, St. Louis Park, Minnesota
• 2023 – Peter Holbrook, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• 2022 – Margie Oloughlin, Northfield, Minnesota
• 2021 – John Ziegenhagen, Minnetonka, Minnesota

John’s award for winning is this prized t-shirt:

I received an intriguing email from Bruce Ludvigson last Thanksgiving that has tempted me to change my lefse recipe, or at least add a wonderful change-of-pace recipe.

Hi Gary,

Just made lefse on Saturday with my 92-year-old brother. [ I’m 81. ] We have been rolling for a lot of years, and we found out our recipe using buttermilk has more flavor then using cream or whipping cream. Don’t know if you have tried this or not, but in the event you have not, give it a whirl. Best regards and have a happy and festive Thanksgiving.

Bruce Ludvigson

OK, Bruce, I got around to trying buttermilk lefse last week … and I love it! Thank you for goosing me to think a bit outside my box.

I simply swapped out buttermilk for cream in my regular lefse recipe. When I make it again, I will add a splash more of buttermilk than my regular amount of cream because I like the flavor so well. The buttermilk adds just the right amount of an engaging buttery sour to what can turn out to be a heavy dose of sugar when you add all the toppings to your finished lefse round.

In addition, the buttermilk made for a really soft, tender lefse round, and that’s notable because I make soft, tender lefse with my regular recipe.

Finally, when I put my buttermilk lefse rounds in a plastic bag and then into the refrigerator after a day or so, the lefse seemed to stay more tender than my regular lefse, which can toughen just a tad in the fridge.

What’s not to like? I may be caught up in the moment, but I am tempted to make buttermilk lefse my regular lefse. Give it a try!

After six years of watching and learning from the pros, I am now making the heirloom lefse rolling pins that I sell. Below is my article about making these pins, which appeared in last December’s issue of American Woodturner magazine.

This is a leap year, and I have leapt into 2024 by getting Covid and a colonoscopy. Kinda hit bottom! So I would say this is a perfect time for some levity and limericks. It’s time for the 4th Annual Lefse Limerick Contest (some ta-dah fanfare, please)!

The theme: Lefse Is Life!

This year, your job as an A1 limerick writer is to create limericks (you just can’t write one, right?) that are about Lefse Is Life.

So start cranking out limericks and send them my way. The 4th Annual Lefse Limerick Contest runs through until the end of March, 2024. That means one month of oodles of doodles about Lefse Is Life.

Refresher on limerick writing:

• Make sure you have seven to nine beats in the first, second, and fifth lines, with the last word in those lines rhyming.

• Have five to seven beats in the third and fourth lines, with the last word in those lines having a different rhyme than the last word in the first, second, and fifth lines.

You will rise quickly in the ranks if your limericks about Lefse Is Life adhere to these rules, or you’re pretty close 🤓. Email your limericks to glegwold@lutefisk.com.

High Risk, High Reward

A refresher on limericks. Wikipedia defines a limerick as “a form of verse, usually humorous and frequently rude,” in five-lines. Again, the first, second and fifth lines rhyme, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, have a different rhyme.

The form originated in England in the 18th century and became popular in the 19th century. Wikipedia says, “Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene … . From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function.”

Wikipedia cites the following example is a limerick of unknown origin:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

A Clean Limerick on Lefse Is Life

So you see the risk of running a Lefse Is Life Limerick Contest. To be true to form, a lefse limerick, it appears, should be “obscene” and “frequently rude” and a “violation of taboo.” Oh, dear!

Well, following the exact form of a limerick will never do in here Lefse Land. We have our fun with lefse, but we are never rude or obscene. No, no, no!

And yet … and yet … it is possible to dance along the borders of the true limerick to create an entertaining Lefse Is Life limerick. Check this out:

“Simplify, simplify,” wrote Thoreau

Keep it simple, and skip all the woe

So lefse Leif made

Then sat in the shade

Saying, “Lefse Is Life, doncha know!”

Gary Legwold

For the Lefse Is Life Limerick Contest, again, you must write a limerick about life and lefse. Go deep, go hokey, make it all one big jokey. It’s limerick time in Lefse Land!

Ok, your turn. Write your Lefse Is Life limericks and enter the contest. Keep it clean, remember, but be bold and be brave! Check out this site on how to write a limerick. Again, do your very best with having seven to nine beats in the first, second, and fifth lines with the last word in those lines rhyming. Then five to seven beats in the third and fourth lines, with the last word in those lines having a different rhyme than the last word in the first, second, and fifth lines.

Send your limerick or limericks to glegwold@lutefisk.com. Submit as many limericks as you want until midnight on March 31, 2024. Winners will be announced in my April newsletter. Oh, winners will receive:

OTHER WINNERS. If you don’t win first place, there is a chance your Lefse Is Life limerick can still win one of the following two prizes:

Now is the time for lefse limerick writers to rise up and put down bold and clever limericks on Lefse Is Life. Enter the 4th Annual Lefse Limerick Contest by emailing limericks to glegwold@lutefisk.com. You have until March 31, 2024. Good luck!

I am up late doing this blog for the newsletter because I’ve been making lefse dough, lots of it. In the morning, customers who ordered bags of lefse for Thanksgiving will pick up their rounds and folks will keep coming throughout the day. I love it! I get excited that so many people get excited about this tradition of serving good lefse for perhaps my favorite holiday. I can’t think of anything better than giving thanks.

I enjoy making these holiday batches, but it’s hard work. Of course, one way to reduce the work is to use instant potatoes. However, I like the flavor a little more that comes with boiling potatoes with the skins on, so I don’t usually go the instant route. With boiling potatoes to make lefse dough, I’ve learned how to lessen the work, so here are four tips on how to stress less and smile more when making mega amounts of lefse.

1. Use Instant Pots

I boil potatoes in pots on the stove, plus I use Instant Pots. I can boil the same amount of potatoes in the Instant Pot as the pots on the stove, and I can program the Instant Pots to have the potatoes done at a certain time. They are electric, so I don’t have to use burners on the stove. And if I am not available when the potatoes are done, the Instant Pot keeps them warm for at least an hour. All in all, using Instant Pots gives me flexibility and makes it possible that I am not overwhelmed with all my potatoes getting done at once.

2. Use a Food Grinder

The grinder has a grinding plate with holes that are about the same size as ricer holes. After the potatoes are cooked, I peel the skins and use what’s called a stomper to feed the potatoes into an auger that pushes the spuds through the grinding plate (see opening photo). I skip the mashing potatoes step by using the grinder. However, I don’t skip hand ricing entirely. I hand rice the potatoes that have gone through the grinder to get as many lumps out of the dough as possible. I’m sure there is a grinder plate that has smaller holes yet, but I’m concerned that pushing potatoes through the grinder twice may leave them too soupy. Plus, ricing is traditional and not using a hand ricer in making lefse just wouldn’t seem right.

3. Use a Cushioned Mat

This mat is a must when I make lefse. I have one in my kitchen and carry one to markets when I roll there. Use one of these mats. Your feet, knees, hips and back will thank you — and let you know loud and clear when you are not standing on the mat when rolling.

4. Use Compression Socks

Keep your feet happy. After making lefse for hours and hours, my dogs are barking and my calves are calling! I have always used shoes with good arch support, but I also wear — and sell — Burlix Graduated Compression Socks. They are wonderful, and I’m not going back to plain old socks for lefse making. I also wear them when I do a lot of standing in the shop. And during the winter, they add a bit of warmth, which is always good.

In my ongoing campaign to find a gluten-free lefse recipe, I tried making lefse yesterday using Due North Gluten Free Bread Flour, which I discovered at last month’s Norsk Hostfest in Minot, North Dakota. Here is what I learned:

• I substituted Due North’s GF flour for regular flour 1:1. However, when mixing the flour with my potato-butter-cream-sugar-salt mixture, I added one egg and mixed that in. I was told to do that by the Due North owners. The added egg created a sticky dough, so I added slightly more flour than what I normally add with regular flour just so this dough could be handled and rolled.
• Rolling this dough with Due North’s GF flour was very good. Most GF flours make dough that is grainy, and the rolled out lefse rounds are thicker than normal and have an uneven edge with splits and cracks. This makes it impossible to roll a round round. Due North GF flour made a dough that could be rolled thin, and the edge, while not entirely smooth, had fewer irregularities than most rounds made of GF flour.
• Turning the thin rolled-out round and transferring the round to the grill was also very good. The rounds did not fall apart, which often happens with rounds made of most GF flours. In fact, with many rounds made of GF flour, I have had to use two turning sticks to carefully lift one round to the grill. Not so, with Due North’s GF flour. No problem with the thin round hanging together.
• Grilling was fine. My only wish is that the lefse would have been a bit more tender.
• Taste was also fine. Jane Legwold, my wife who is gluten-free but not celiac, said the Due North had a little bit less of a potato taste but was good lefse overall. Butter spread on the lefse brought moisture to the round, she said, and this round made with Due North’s GF flour was more tender than lefse made with other GF flours — and she had no symptoms that she always gets with eating gluten. She added this lefse is not like tender, really good lefse made with regular flour by a really good lefse maker, but nothing is. All in all, thumbs up.

You know that old joke about the Norwegian who loved his wife so much that … that he almost told her? Well, two days ago I loved that Jane Legwold, my wife pictured above, could now eat lefse — good lefse — that I almost told her!

Actually, I did tell her how genuinely happy I was that she could once again eat tender, tasty lefse after decades of abstaining or eating crumbly, inferior lefse made with gluten-free flours. To these flours I would add xanthan gum in a effort to replace gluten and hold the lefse dough together as I rolled and baked. Often, however, the rolled out dough, which was a bit crumbly, never became a round round, just a jagged splat. And the round regularly fell apart in getting it to the grill, to the point that I had to use two turning sticks and a delicate touch to do the job. The end product rolled up and eaten fairly soon after making it passed as lefse, I suppose, and was a blessing to those who could eat that or nothing at Christmas.

The last time Jane and I were at both our local coop and grocery store, we found Jovial einkorn flour. You can also find it online. Jane had heard about einkorn. It is a wheat NOT recommended for those with celiac disease. However, for those who are not celiac but are gluten sensitive, which Jane is, einkorn can be a just the thing because it is very low in gluten. It is made of wheat that has never been hybridized and has tiny grains with less carbohydrates, more protein and a surprisingly sweet flavor. Here’s how it is explained on the Jovial website:

Einkorn has never been hybridized and contains the original 14 chromosomes while modern hybrids have 42. Over time, in an effort to increase yield to feed a growing population, wheat was transformed from this simple grain to a high yielding modern food source that was versatile and hardy. Einkorn does contain gluten but the proteins that make up the gluten in einkorn are short, weak and brittle and break easily when mixed with water. Einkorn has a very different ratio of glutenins to gliadins which are the proteins that make up gluten. This property has made einkorn easy to tolerate by many who find the strong, stretchy gluten of modern wheat flour impossible to digest. 

“What Is Einkorn, and Is It Safe for Me?” on the Jovial website.

This all sounded too good to be true, but we bought the einkorn flour and I made a small batch of lefse dough with it kneaded in. I used my same recipe that I use for my regular lefse, but I simply subbed in the einkorn flour for the King Arthur all-purpose flour I normally use.

The dough was indeed sweet naturally and not crumbly. It rolled to make a round round. No jagged edges. I was encouraged. There were sticking issues, so I went extra light on the rolling pin and kept my rounds smaller than I normally roll, turning the rounds often in the rolling and moving them around my covered pastry board to prevent sticking. I also “sawed” my turning stick under each finished round to make sure the round was not sticking.

So far so good. Now getting the round to the grill. Using just one stick, I lifted the round and rotated the stick to flatten the round on the grill. No problem! My excitement grew.

On the grill, the lefse browned beautifully, and the rounds were tender and soft after cooling.

I tasted the einkorn flour lefse, and it was very good. Moist, tender, tasty — just like real lefse! I was jovial!

But I am not gluten sensitive. Jane is, and with hope but also some fear that this einkorn flour thing was more marketing than truth, she spread butter on the round and rolled it. She slowly ate the round, waiting for the signs of how gluten affects her: trouble swallowing, aching joints, foggy thinking and bloating.

Nothing. No symptoms as the hours passed and in the next few days.

We are wary still that with repeated eating of the einkorn flour lefse, symptoms will return. But maybe not, and this is a very good sign.

Again, this is not for people with celiac, just for those like Jane, who are gluten sensitive.

I get asked a lot if I have a gluten-free recipe, and I always have to say no. I have not found a gluten-free lefse recipe that I can get behind. They yield lefse that is just passable. But I am hopeful about einkorn flour lefse dough. It makes lefse that is more than passable. It’s pretty dang good!