Lefse a Tasty Tradition

I come from a Scandinavian background, but no one in my family knew how to make lefse. It was something that I really wanted to learn how to do to connect with my heritage and keep a cultural tradition alive, so I had to find someone to teach me. I learned how to make lefse from the "Church Basement Ladies," an unofficial group of talented Scandinavian bakers from my church. Every year they would get together on a Saturday for 8 hours and just make lefse for the church's Scandinavian Heritage Dinner. I was 12 years old when I walked into their Lefse operation and right away I was put to work. It was amazing to see the set up that these ladies had created, there were a dozen stations each with a pastry rolling board and a griddle.

The easiest position for me to start in was the griddle. I would careful roll out the thin round of lefse onto the hot metal and wait until there were just the right amount of brown spots and then I would flip it. After flipping lefse for 4 hours my well seasoned, supervising lefse expert let me try rolling a round out. The process of rolling out lefse takes a lot of flour and practice. The first round that I ever rolled out stuck to the pastry board and looked a little bit like Abraham Lincoln. We cooked the lefse until it was done and then I was informed that the round didn't meet the quality expectations for the church. It went onto the "flop" pile that was filled with rejected pieces of lefse that would be eaten by the church ladies when they took a coffee break. Now I make lefse from scratch at my own home, I even teach other people how to do it. Every time we make lefse the day is always full of successes, failures and laughs!

If you are interested in making your own lefse check out our published Vegan Lefse recipe in the next blog post!!!

See you soon,

Katie Ohren