My great grandmother, Ida Ryan, went west to California as a youth in a covered wagon.   And that was in the days before television and, can you believe it, radio!  Must have been a jolting and scary experience with those big iron wheels and mile after mile of Indians looking for a meal.  But what I want to tell you about is my reverse migration east from California to Minnesota by covered station wagon.  It was to be a temporary family move for a good job.  But the usual happened; we settled in and a forth child arrived and they all started to school in turn and, and........here we are.

I learned that Minnesota is a land of Swedes, Finns and Norways and Daneians.  Oh there was a sprinkling of everything else plus plenty of Indians but Vikings prevail.  That showed clearly in the style, let's be generous, 'style' of cooking that got done, mainly boiling.  Available groceries were pathetic; consider tomatoes for example.  We had come from sunny Fairfield at the western edge of the California Central Valley.  There the aroma of tomato, bright red on the vine, succulent and each a meal by itself floated every summer over Travis Air Base where I was impounded.  But in Minnesota tomatoes were hard and pale and lacked aroma because they were made of cardboard.  A few had a feint tomato-like taste.  I looked forward though to the Smorgasbord which I had heard was The Grand Scandinavian Spread.  When we were invited to one I had to disguise my distress.  We were confronted by a long buffet table laid out with drab white, grey and pale green, can I say, well, foods.   I exaggerate; there was yellowish butter for the white bread and a thin brown substitute for coffee.  I looked at my new nordic friends with my quizzical expression as if to ask, "You are teasing me, right?"  But they only said with glee, "Come on Bill, dig in!"

We had come from the civilized, food loving West Coast where foods were a parade of color and taste.  Peaches, pears, plumbs, grapes, apricots were glorious in reds, oranges, pinks, vibrant greens, purples and you get the idea.  Ah, and the aroma!   But in Minnesota turnips, parsnips, potatoes and something they called 'rootie baggage' were the delight along with grayish over cooked meats and slabs of off-white fish.  Gravy? Sure they had gravy but it was grey too.   Oh, they will do a rhubarb pie but it shocks them to have all the purple-red so they must cover it with a top crust.  

It is not their fault.  Their icy Scandinavian pasts had made them indifferent to flavor and color.  Week after month in a tippy long canoe with spears and shields weighing them down and nothing to eat but decaying fish altered their genetic structure.   Sometimes they caught a fresh fish but wouldn't eat it until it ripened.  The lucky  ones found some shore so they could get about their occupation of raping and pillaging.   Those old timers were never sure where they were except it was too warm and too colorful to be home.  Soon as their business was done they rushed home again so they could get cold and have boring food.

I once tried to cook up a real meal for them with a rich red pasta sauce, golden peppers, multicolored olives, bright green spinach and potent French Roast coffee.  They poked at it, embarrassed for me,  so I abandoned any more remedial efforts.

Their's is a culture that delights in bad fish.  And they are Lutherans so annually they gather for the big church feast to drool over fish soaked in potash lye, 'lutefish'  (pronounced somehow).  Really!  Once I was invited to a real Swedish wedding to which relatives from the old country brought a large bulging tin of putrid fish, on purpose.  This is true too!  They knew what to expect so they took the can to the yard and opened it with an axe.  They they scurried out of the way as the can spewed a thick stream of reeking fish rot juice.  The stench drove foreigners, us, into the house from which we watched those natives proudly dip fingers into the vile glop and glory in the stink and the 'taste'.  I actually saw and smelled it.   That is the sort of Vikings they are!

I have learned to get along with them and pretend not to notice their defects.  It is useless to talk to them much.  They are Lutherans, as I said, so humorless and guilt ridden.  They have a pecking order too that was a novelty to me.  Danes are tolerated if their pastry has no colorful fruit showing, but they are really lower class as are all europeans.  Swedes and Norways are contemptuous of each other and fight it out for top dogdom.  Finn are born morose and stay apart.

But sadly I must report that now California has its problems.  It is quaky and has fallen into debt and is heavily overpopulated.  The southern part is a mix of Hollywood yahoos and damp shirted illegal Mexicans.   A mix of drought and flood and fire is now a permanent cycle of the California experience.

While here in Duluth, Minnesota we are on the rock solid shores of the biggest drink of fresh water in the western hemisphere (Well, yes, it is coolish in winter).  And recently some wonderful foods have been imported.  Gradually the Scandies are intermarrying and losing their primitive ways so I plan to stay but I will cook and eat at home.