The lutefisk dinners are here! Time to head to Van Nuys for traditional fish, meatballs, aquavit

With an unofficial slogan of Take the Risk, Try Lutefisk, it’s a pretty safe assumption that dining on lutefisk is not your average meal. That’s what’s printed on the aprons at Sons of Norway, Norrona Lodge No. 50 in Van Nuys, and you can kind of see why.

A traditional Scandinavian dish of lye-treated whitefish, lutefisk is found most places where there’s a decent-sized Scandinavian population, and it’s part of the seasonal table: Thanksgiving to Christmas is considered lutefisk season.

Lucky for you, the dish is also available once a year at a lutefisk and meatball community dinner at the Sons of Norway lodge’s Norrona chapter, where it’s been dished up since the mid-1940s. One member has attended the dinners since 1951.

Ryan Ole Hass, head cook of the chapter, keeps watch over six pots of lutefisk at a time, making sure the fish don’t dissolve from overcooking, a danger when making this dish. Hass expects to boil about 400 pounds of fish this year.

The folks of the Norrona chapter also roll out almost 5,000 Norwegian meatballs (similar to Swedish ones) on the Thursday prior to the dinners, which run for two evenings, serving up to 800 lutefisk and meatball aficionados.

The dinner features all-you-can-eat lutefisk, meatballs, traditional accompaniments and desserts. The gravy-smothered meatballs are popular, as is lefse, a thin, potato-flour flatbread resembling a tortilla, which is often served with butter, brown sugar or jam.

Lutefisk has various and sometimes hilarious origin myths, but the most likely explanation is that it was developed as a means to preserve fish for the long winters. Today, lutefisk mostly makes an appearance around the holidays, typically at Lutheran churches and Nordic clubs in the Upper Midwest.

Lutefisk itself is an acquired taste. Hass says that the dinners are seeing a decrease in attendance due to the gradual loss of its mostly elderly fanbase. Years ago, the lutefisk dinners were held twice a year, in February and November — now it’s just November.

That said, recently a small lutefisk following has been growing, thanks in large part to social media and people searching for interesting food.

“There’s a professor who brings his class to the dinner for a unique cultural experience,” says Hass. “In the past couple of years, we’ve been getting a busload of Chinese people, who bring their own Sriracha. They take up a few tables and only eat the lutefisk.”

If lutefisk isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, there are all those meatballs — and an aquavit bar behind the lodge, which also might help with the lutefisk.

Sons of Norway Lodge’s Annual Lutefisk & Meatball Dinner, Friday and Saturday, 4 to 8 p.m., $20 for adults, $10 for children 7-12 (6 and under free).

Sons of Norway Norrona Lodge, 14312 Friar St., Van Nuys, (818) 780-4778, www.norronalodge.org.

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