Fall Dinners--Lutheran Style in NW MN

I used to live in Thief River Falls which is in the Northwest region of Minnesota. Fall in Northwest Minnesota meant alot of things: the start of the school year, football and volleyball season, change of leaves from green to gold, and weekend fall dinners. Now these dinners are no ordinary home-cooked meals--these dinners are events. For you see in Northwest Minnesota on any given weekend from September to mid-November, a person can find at least one Lutheran church within a 45 mile radius offering a feast for a small fee. However, there's a small catch, most of these dinners feature lutefisk.

Personally, I am not a big fan of lutefisk. Just for saying that I bet the sons of Norway lodge would probably take away my membership, if I had one. Even though I don't care for it, there are hourds of people who love it. Love it so much that they will travel around the region going from church to church to partake in their annual fall dinner. The churches have no problem packing the house. In fact, for most of the churches, this is an annual fundraiser that has become a line-item on their budgets. It is not uncommon for churches to bring in 500-600 lutefisk lovers. That's alot of people! (And alot of lutefisk)

Typically the lutefisk dinners would include "all the fixins" which in this case includes meatballs (a meal saver for those of use who aren't big fans of lutefisk) potaoes and gravy, coleslaw (or some other form of salad), corn, breads, coffee, milk and of course home-baked pies. I went just for the pies. OK and for the commaraderie of my friends. I also loved going because I felt it was a cultural study. We certainly didn't have anything like this where I grew up, but up here it was the norm. One guy even would make his own "lutefisk gravy" at home and bring it with him to the church dinners.

There were so many churches that were offering lutefisk dinners that some started to get creative in what they served. I heard, but never attended, a church up there that offered "lutefisk hotdish". My favorite by far was a little tiny church just outside of Thief River Falls called St Pauli. St Pauli served a turkey dinner instead of lutefisk, which is probably why it was my favorite. This little tiny church in the country only has about rows of pews and a steady attendance of about 25 people. Yet they'll serve over 500 people. It's quite the feat for a small church. Cars will be lined up down the county highway and it's not unusual a person can wait up to an hour or more before getting served. Afterall, there's only so much room in their church basement. But they've got it all down to a system after all these years. And I was able to once again partake in their fall dinner this weekend.

We got there at 3:15, paid for our tickets and got our name added to the list. They started serving at 4:00 and we got in the first round--table number 2. They must have had about 10 tables that sat 9 each. Each table had a server that would bring your food family style (everything in bowls and you helped yourself to as much as you wanted). The servers all had matching checkered aprons that I imagine were made by the Ladies Aid group. They had people in charge of just pie and people in charge of just milk and coffee. It was a well organized evening and the food was fantastic. I guess I picked the right fall weekend to be up north!


Photo taken from http://historicstpauli.org/historicphotos/



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