Nothing says summer like potato salad, but while many people have strong opinions about what constitutes potato salad and what doesn't, in my opinion, if it contains cold (or even warm!) potatoes and some kind of dressing, it's potato salad. Scandinavians have embraced the potato since it was introduced in the mid-1700s, and it now plays a foundational role in some of their most famous foods, including lefse, Jansson's temptation, and the beloved boiled red potatoes that accompany nearly every celebratory meal, including Midsummer. For my Scandinavian Midsummer Porch Party, I thought I'd riff off of a recipe my mother-in-law introduced to me, and make it slightly more Scandinavian. Hers calls for boiled potatoes, sweet onion, white vinegar, and mayo with dried dill. I made mine with boiled red potatoes (also a North Dakota favorite) and fresh dill. Native to the Mediterranean and Eurasia, dill is probably the most important culinary herb in Scandinavia. Only caraway gives it a run for its money. Although most Americans are probably only familiar with it thanks to dill pickles, it is one of my favorite herbs - fresh and green tasting, but not as one-dimensional as parsley or overpowering as fennel or rosemary. It is the perfect complement to fish, cucumbers (as you'll see in the next post), and yes, potatoes. Scandinavians also use it to flavor lamb stew, instead of the more Western mint. Fresh dill can be a bit of a pain to keep fresh, but trim the stems when you get home and place them in a wide-mouth pint mason jar with an inch or so of cold water. It will keep fresh at room temp for a day or so (change the water daily), but put it in the fridge with a plastic bag tent if you want it to keep for longer. The key to this tangy salad is the vinegar, and tossing the onions and potatoes while the potatoes are still hot. Creamy Dilled Potato SaladIf you don't have fresh dill, you can certainly use 2 tablespoons dried dill, but the flavor, while good, won't be quite the same. 2-3 lbs red potatoes 1 sweet onion, like Vidalia or Walla-Walla 2+ tablespoons white or white wine vinegar 1+ cup mayonnaise 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill Wash the potatoes and slice them about a quarter inch thick (I cut my very large potatoes in quarters first). Place in a large pot and add cold water to cover generously. Bring to a rolling boil, reduce the heat slightly (so they don't boil over), and cook until fork-tender, but not quite falling apart. Meanwhile, cut the root end off the onion, then cut in half lengthwise, peel, and cut in quarters or sixths. Slice crosswise paper thin. Add to a large serving bowl or casserole and toss the onions with the vinegar. When the potatoes are done, drain and let them steam for a second, then add while hot to the onions and vinegar. Toss well to combine. Then add mayonnaise to coat and the fresh dill. Taste and add more vinegar as necessary. The vinegar flavor will tame down a bit as the potatoes absorb it, so if making ahead taste the next day and add more vinegar as necessary. You can also add some sour cream if you want this potato salad to be even creamier. Serve as a side dish to grilled meats, sandwiches, or your favorite bean salad. The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip!
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Today is Midsummer! The summer solstice is a big deal in Scandinavian countries, and I grew up celebrating it with my local Swedish Society. We'd have a big potluck, replete with Scandinavian goodies, in a local park, raise a giant maypole, and then sing and dance Swedish songs around it. My florist parents and I would do all the decorations for the maypole - a local guy would bring a huge harvest of poplar and cottonwood branches to serve as the greenery, and my dad would wire it all onto feet and feet of garland. The morning of, we'd wire leftover fresh flowers onto the garland and then deck the maypole, which had to have been at least 20 feet tall. Then it would get raised up at the park and everything felt festive! The picnic would be held in a big covered park pavilion, and we'd often have live music or visiting Scandinavian bands, but the food was the main attraction. Midsummer has long roots in Scandinavia. Celebrated since pagan Viking times, the festival emphasized the importance of the sun and fire. Sankthansaften - or St. John's Eve - is the night before midsummer, and in Norway is often celebrated with huge bonfires, including the one in Ålesund, Norway, which features the largest bonfire in the world! In Sweden, where midsommar is the biggest deal in all of the Nordic countries, the maypole is generally the center of midsummer celebrations. Salmon, shrimp, herring, sour cream, dill, cucumbers, strawberries, almond-flavored desserts, and whipped cream feature prominently in most Midsummer menus, along with copious amounts of aquavit (which, sadly, I could not find in my local liquor stores). Spring fish runs, woodland strawberries, and early vegetables like new potatoes all reflect the arrival of the summer season in Scandinavia, which is later than in most of Europe. Midsummer also heralds the season of midnight sun. As the longest day of the year for the Northern hemisphere, the summer solstice near the Arctic circle means just a few hours of twilight, and no actual nighttime, for weeks. Here in the northern United States, it just means the sun sets a little later than normal. Ever since my mom died, I've been feeling the need to reconnect with my Scandinavian roots. There are far fewer of us out East than back home, so I decided to introduce my friends to a real Scandinavian party. The midsummer porch picnic was born and now I want to do one every year! Scandinavian Midsummer MenuI wanted the menu to be relatively straightforward and easy to prepare. I had a few extras on my list, but didn't quite get there due to time constraints (as per usual). I did the desserts ahead of time, but everything else was prepared the morning of. I was running behind, so the sandwiches were assembled with help from the guests! Here's the full menu: Appetizers: Deviled eggs Fresh Pea Spread Mushroom Pâté Goat cheese* Creamed Pickled Herring* Wasa Rye Crackers* Sides: Dilled Potato Salad Scandinavian Cucumber Salad Pickled Beets* Open Faced Sandwiches: Salmon Cucumber Salad on White Dill Havarti and Summer Sausage with Cucumber on Rye Ham and Jarlsberg on Pumpernickel with Lingonberry Jam Ski Queen Brunost on Rye with Strawberry Jam Dessert: Sandbakkels Small and Large with Jam and Whipped Cream Midsummer Rice Pudding with Raspberry Sauce Rommegrot Ice Cream Drinks: Rhubarb Gin & Tonics Elderflower Punch *you can buy these things - no need to make yourself! I'll be posting one recipe a day for the next several days, so keep your eyes peeled. No need to bookmark your favorites, I'll link them all back to this menu. We are lucky enough that our little house has a very large screen porch, and one larger than our living room! This is always the perfect place for summer parties, although the fireplace is no longer useable. The uneven stone floor makes for some interesting seating and table arrangements sometimes, but it's worth it for the space to spread out all at tables together. I got to use some of my vintage dishes, including newly acquired Block Optic green Depression glass, some little pink depression glass dessert plates, and my favorite lace-edged milk glass plates for those who were too nervous to eat off of the green uranium glass. Rice pudding with raspberry sauce, a pitcher of rhubarb gin and tonic, and sandbakkels large and small with strawberry, blackberry, and homemade (not by me) raspberry-rose wine jam and topped with homemade whipped cream. The blue pitcher just out of sight in the upper right hand corner contained the elderflower punch. Although the party was a smash success (the first guest arrived at 2 pm - the last left at 10:30 pm), and we did get our bonfire outdoors, we were having too much fun to make the flower crowns I had planned! And the unseasonably chilly weather (a high of just 63 F after the previous day's high of 90 F was a bit of a shock) did put the kibosh on some of our plans. But we still had a great time. I tried pickled herring for the first time. It was my Swedish grandpa's favorite, but although it was nowhere near as bad as I feared as a child, the creamy sweet-and-sour flavor was not my favorite. I sent the jar home with a friend who fell in love. The pickled beets went home with another friend who loves them, and the last bits of the extremely good creamy cucumber salad went home with another friend's kids, who couldn't stop eating it. The rhubarb gin turned out divine, and everyone was curiously addicted to the elderflower punch. The extra creamy rice pudding with raspberries was my take on the Swedish rice pudding the society made by the gallons for the big Scandinavian festival I grew up attending every year. The raspberry sauce topping is a must. But the runaway surprise hit of the afternoon was the brunost with strawberry jam. To a person the 15+ people who attended loved it. That was the only platter of sandwiches to be totally gone by the end of the evening. In all, a delightful party, despite the weather, and one I'm definitely going to repeat. Next year I'll make sure to have the flower crown activity ready to go, I'll decorate more with some Scandinavian flags and a mini maypole or two (I don't think I could swing a giant one), and aquavit is definitely going on the menu for next year. And I will try to take more photos! If you'd like to try your hand at your own midsummer party, feel free to steal liberally from the menu above. Just don't forget to make things festive with flowers, candles, pretty table linens and dishes, and, if you can swing it, a real fire! Glad midsommar, alle! Learn more about Scandinavian midsummer traditions. The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Leave a tip! Last week I went home to Fargo, ND for my grandfather's funeral. He had passed away in June of this year, just a few weeks short of his 102nd birthday. Born in 1919, he lived to see a lot of change and ultimately, two global pandemics. It was the first time I had been home since 2019, when I returned for grandpa's 100th birthday and a cousin's wedding. Every time I go home to North Dakota, there's both joy and grief. Joy in seeing old friends and family, in visiting the old stomping grounds, in being able to see the whole sky without too many trees and mountains in the way, and being back in the land where Scandinavian culture still looms large (I went to the Sons of Norway, Kringen Lodge, four times in six days). But also grief, for what once was and will never be again. The common sort of grief when the stomping grounds change almost beyond recognition, but also another sort of grief, of cultural loss. When I was in high school, North Dakota had two Democratic Senators and a Democratic Representative and our biggest exports were wheat, sunflower seeds, honey, and sugar beets. Things have certainly changed since then. But some things haven't changed at all. Case in point: the North Dakota Caramel Roll (pronounced "car-mull," not "care-ah-mel"), formerly called "Dakota Rolls." Once the purview of rural cafes and church basements, the caramel roll is seeing something of a North Dakota renaissance. It's everywhere, and it's amazing. Not to be confused with cinnamon rolls or the sad, dried out, caramel roll cousin, the "sticky bun," caramel rolls are pillowy soft and drenched in smooth caramel. There's nothing worse than getting a caramel roll that's more roll than caramel. The Northeast can keep its dry and sticky buns with burnt pecans. I tried my best to track down the history of "Dakota rolls," but sadly no one else appears to have done the research yet, so this is my stab at it. I think perhaps their prominence in North Dakota has to do with the specific confluence of immigration that makes North Dakota - especially the Eastern half of the state - special when compared to others. Scandinavians, especially Norwegians, abound. Germans, too, but one particular group, Germans from Russia, have settled on the northern plains, including North Dakota, in higher concentrations than anywhere else in the world. The intersection of Scandinavian and German immigration has meant that North Dakota is home to some prodigious bakers. Cinnamon rolls are thought to have originated in Scandinavia, possibly Sweden. They were also historically popular in Germany, where the sticky bun or "schnecken" (snail) is from. Honey-sweetened buns date back to ancient Rome, but the idea to roll the dough flat, spread it with a filling, and roll it into a spiral before slicing was an inspiration whose inventor is lost to time. Caramel rolls specifically seem to date to the early 20th century in North Dakota. I did find a few 19th century references to "sticky buns," but no recipes. The search term "caramel roll" turns up almost exclusively candy advertisements and recipes until the 1920s. I did find one reference to caramel rolls from the Hughes Brothers Bakery in Bismarck, ND. Although the bakery itself predates 1911, they moved to a new location that year, and apparently began engaging in regular newspaper advertisements thereafter. I love the 1928 advertisement - "Let us do your baking these hot days," and published close to Memorial Day, no less! "Why spend time fussing about doing your own baking when we can and will gladly do it for you at less cost than you can do it yourself?" Why, indeed, Hughes Brothers. Why, indeed? Likely coinciding with the rise of diners, roadside cafes, and school cafeterias, the caramel roll expanded across North Dakota (and into some neighboring states, notably South Dakota) with a vengeance. Although there is little mention of them in North Dakota community cookbooks from the 1940s, by the 1970s they're in full evidence. The few recipes that I was able to find are remarkably similar, and all call for making the dough from scratch. But some modern bakers cheat and use frozen bread dough, notably Rhodes brand. My copy of the Westminster Presbyterian Church cookbook from Casselton, ND, undated but likely circa 1970s, judging by the handwriting, has a recipe for "Dakota Rolls" submitted by Mrs. William L. Guy. Mr. William L. Guy was governor of North Dakota from 1961-1973, and the Mrs. was Elizabeth "Jean" (Mason) Guy, who is credited with helping revive the Democratic Nonpartisan League in North Dakota (thanks for the research tip, Mom!). I've reproduced Jean's recipe in full below. Dakota Rolls Recipe1 c. scalded milk (do not boil) 2 T. butter 2 T. sugar 1 t. salt 1 cake compressed or 1 pkg. granulated yeast 1/4 c. lukewarm water 1 egg, well beaten 3 1/2 c. flour (about) Soften yeast in lukewarm water. Stir and let stand about 5 minutes. Combine milk, sugar, salt and shortening (i.e. the butter) and cool to lukewarm. Stir yeast and add to cooled milk. Beat egg, add to milk and yeast mixture. Gradually stir in the flour to form a soft dough (there should be about 1/2 cup flour left for kneading). Beat until smooth. Turn out on floured canvas or board. Cover with greased wax paper and a damp towel. Let rest for 10 minutes. Knead until smooth and satiny, adding flour as needed. This roll dough should not be too firm. Place dough in a warm greased bowl, turning until all of surface is lightly greased. Cover with greased wax paper and damp towel, and let rise in a warm place (85-90 F) about 1 hour and 45 minutes or until double in bulk. Punch down and let rise again until double in bulk. Turn out on flour dusted canvas or board and roll about 1/4" thick in oblong shape, 8" x 16". Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with 1/4 cup brown sugar. Roll as for cinnamon rolls. Cut in 1" slices. Combine 1 C. of brown sugar, 2 T. light corn syrup, and 1 T. butter. Heat slowly in a greased shallow pan or muffin tin. Set aside to cool. Place rolls, cut side down, over the mixture. Cover, let rise until double in bulk. Bake in 375 F oven for 25 minutes. Remove from pan. Cool, bottom side up. Makes 2 dozen rolls. It seems to me that this recipe, while very instructive in terms of the dough, has not nearly enough caramel to cover two dozen rolls. Modern cooks usually combine brown sugar and heavy cream, or some even swear that melted vanilla ice cream is the secret to good and ample caramel. However, the 1975 Fargo-Moorhead Centennial Cookbook also has a recipe for Dakota Rolls, submitted by Judy Adams, which appears to be lifted almost verbatim from the Casselton cookbook. Here's a more caramel-y modern recipe. Sadly, I haven't had time to test this recipe and it's been too hot to bake lately, but fall weather is coming! So maybe a weekend of yeast baking is in order soon. Perhaps I'll combine my caramel roll baking with orange rolls - another Midwestern specialty that seemed to be more prominent in the 1930s and '40s than their caramelly cousins. I'll leave you with one of the few photos I took at home - sunset on Tamarack Lake in Minnesota. And if you're ever in Fargo, try the rhubarb caramel rolls (yes! they put rhubarb in the bottom with the caramel! It's amazing!) at Kroll's Diner. They're divine. The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Don't like Patreon? Join with an annual membership below, or just leave a tip! |
AuthorSarah Wassberg Johnson has an MA in Public History from the University at Albany and studies early 20th century food history. Archives
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