Lefse and the makings of traditions

I'm pretty sure that my mom did not make lefse.  I know that we ate it growing up, but I don't remember her ever making it (which doesn't mean that she didn't, I just don't remember).  We certainly ATE it - I'm just not sure where it came from.  I don't remember my grandma making it either, but it's certainly possible.  But I do know that as a good Scandanavian - you can't survive the holdiays without lefse.

One of my roommates in my 20's was a lefse maker.  She was Scandanavian (like me) and she DID make lefse.  So I think that's when I started.  We made lefse every year before Christmas.  (I don't know why lefse has this 'Christmas tag'.  It's not like it's decorative - maybe it's because it's kind of a pain to make, so it because a 'once a year' thing - like a lot of Christmas treats.)  I don't remember a whole lot about our lese recipe back then.  I DO remember that it was a festive occasion, and we generally celebrated by drinking something special (and strong) while we were making it.  Like Rum Punch.  (Now you know why I don't remember much about those events :)  )  I remember making it with her after we were no longer roommates.  She came to my house.  I had a kitchen.  With carpeting.  We weren't very tidy.  It was a pretty big mess.  David still remembers the potato ground into the (plaid) kitchen carpet.

I don't think I made it every year, but over time, it has become something that I do at least once at year - and sometimes more.  I have taught a few people how to make it.  I don't know if they've continued on their own.  Probably not.  It's one of those things that really take practice - years of practice - before you get a product that is consistently good.  (Or maybe just consistent.) 

I generally don't share my lefse with anyone outside of my (fairly) immediate family.  There are a couple of reasons for this.
 
1.  My mom doesn't like my lefse.  (At least that's what she told me years ago when I brought it home for her to try.)  She likes what I would consider a 'drier' lefse. I also think that my lefse was too thick for her liking.   She probably doesn't even remember trying it, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't impressed.  In all fairness, it probably wasn't that good back then.  So it's made me a bit paranoid about sharing since there are lots of different feelings about lefse.  Butter, sugar, cinnamon, thick, dry, wet, thin, etc.

2. My recipe for lefse doesn't make a lot.  It takes a long time, and one doesn't end up with a huge amount of product when one is done.  Since everyone in my family loves my lefse, they frown upon me taking it out of the house.  (Yes, I could make a bigger recipe, but it's a LOT of work, and I'm not going to  make if for you if you don't LOVE IT!!)

3.  I'm afraid other people won't like it.  (see number one.)  I work hard at making my lefse, and I know that there are a lot of camps out there with different ideas about 'wetness.dryness' thick/thin, butter, sugar, no sugar. See above. 

I have been making lefse pretty steadily now since my kids were little.  Emma was helping me for the past 10 years or so, but sadly now she is in college and not living at home, so I'm back to doing it on my own.  (Remember I mentioned earlier that it takes years of practice?).  She got really good before she left.  The first few years of her helping involved quite a lot of flour (which tends to make a crispier lefse), but towards the end of her time at home, she could turn them out with the best of them.  And it was fun.  It was a chance for us to hang out for a few hours and chat about everything and nothing.  I hope when she has kids she wants to continue on the tradition.  (Otherwise they can come to Grandma's house and I'll teach them.)

Joe and David are huge lefse eaters.  I grew up eating lefse as sort of a 'sweet'.  I put butter, and cinnamon and sugar on it, because that's how we did it.   David and Joe like to eat it more as a 'bread'.  They like to toss it in the microwave to heat it up (if they can't eat it right off the griddle) and eat it plain, or with a little butter. 

This year I made lefse before Christmas.  Alone.  I don't make as much of a mess as I used to, but there is still a little flour on the floor when I'm done - it's hard to be completely tidy when you're dealing with flour, and rolling out potatoes, etc.

For Christmas Emma gave me a pastry/lefse board, which can be used to roll out lefse.   (Her boyfriend's mom uses one.)  So, since (as I mentioned earlier) I have quite a bit of free time on my hands since David is travelling, I decided that I would make lefse this weekend and try out the new board.  I read an article before Christmas about lefse making ladies in the Twin Cities (which is a pretty common topic before Christmas in the Taste section of the paper) and they used a pastry board - AND the recipe that I used.  So I thought - why not?  I can't wait until NEXT Christmas to try out this thing. 

So - last night after work I went to the grocery store to get what I needed.  5 pounds of potatoes, cream, and butter.  The recipe that I use is from Beatrice Ojakangas, who is a well known Scandanavian chef.  Her recipe requires that you cook and rice the potatoes the day before so that they can sit in the fridge overnight.  I think it sucks some of the moisture out.  Whatever the reason, it's the recipe that I've used for probably the last 15 years, and it seems to work quite well. 

Normally, when I am getting ready to make the lefse, I make balls of dough about the size of a baseball.  The article that I found in the paper suggested golf ball sized dough balls.  I thought - Why not?  You get more of them that way.  (I didn't factor in the additional time it would take me to roll out that many more pieces of dough.) In the past, with the baseball sized pieces, I would get about 30 pieces of lefse.  Which doesn't go far in this house.  Which is one of the reasons we don't share. 

This time I got about 60 pieces.  Double.  So it might last a tiny bit longer since when someone goes to eat a piece, they normally have one piece. If it's half the size I don't think they'll have two.  We'll see. 

I floured up my new pastry board per the instructions.  Rolled out a piece of lefse.  (Note that you can see the writing through the dough, so that tells me that it's thin 'enough'.

(Pay no attention to the fact that it's not perfectly round.)  Emma and I like to think of ourselves as artists when we roll out lefse, so it doesn't have to be round :)  )

I have two griddles - one that I got from my mother-in-law for a gift (can't remember if it was Christmas or my birthday) and another that I got from my mother-in-law because she doesn't make lefse any more.  (Not sure if she ever did - but I've got the griddle now).
Although it's advertised as a lefse, egg, pancake, etc griddle, they are pretty much just lefse griddles at my house.  with two griddles I can make things move a long a bit faster.

Though I can tell you from experience that you can't run the dishwasher at the same time (which is on the same circuit) because you will blow the circuit.  (Took me awhile to figure out what was happening that year.  :)  )

Lefse waiting to go onto the griddle:

And the lefse that is put onto a dishtowel and covered immediately so that it steams and stays nice and moist with (almost) no crispy edges:

As soon as it is cool, I will put in to some freezer bags and toss it in the freezer.  Interestingly, I don't eat a whole lot of the lefse that I make.  Most of it is consumed by others in my family.  It's not that I don't love it - I do.  I think it's because I want to make sure there is enough for everyone else.  And it's more of a dessert thing for me.  I like it with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Yum.

As far as the pastry board experiment combined with the new handling - the jury is out.  I might stick with the smaller portions.  It took a bit longer to cook them all, but 3 hours, 4 hours - in the long run, not a big difference, and if people only eat one at a time, I'll be ahead of the game there.

I had more issues with potato sticking to the board than I thought I would.  I think in generally I didn't put as much flour into the lefse as I would have the 'old way', but I feel like I had to putz around with it more than normal.  Clean up was a bit easier.  I still had to clean up all of the flour on the counter, but it wasn't 'ground in' like it would have been had I been rolling it all out onto the counter rather than the board. 

I guess the real test will be when people eat the lefse and decide if it is better, worse, or the same as the way that I've been doing it for the past twenty years. 

I don't drink Rum Punch anymore when I'm making it.  (Which might be one of the reasons that's its better)  I guess I can change other things about it too.  Although I DO hope that Emma is hope the next time.  It's a lot more fun to do it with her.