Norwegian Lefsa, Minnesota

"What I'd like to share is a tradition in our family to make Norwegian lefse as a dish every Thanksgiving, and my husband, who is from Minnesota, actually learned this from his mother and their generations going back a few actually came from Norway and some from Sweden, and it's a wonderful tradition in our family because my husband actually makes better lefse than any of his four sisters. His is paper thin which is exactly how its supposed to be and he makes a batch of it.

We wish he made it more than just at Thanksgiving, but it's sort of guarded like gold, and we pass it around for the next few days and it's gone for year. And, it's just wonderful, and it makes us feel not only very tied to Minnesota, which we don't get to as often as we like, but also going back generations to the old country, and I think it's very interesting because it also brings us to the memory of the family farm back, which luckily, is still preserved back home in Minnesota. So, it's very exciting once a year to remember and to eat it."

Part of the "Stories from Main Street" project--an effort to collect stories about small-town life across the United States. The initial project was the brainchild of the Smithsonian's "Museum on Main Street" program, an initiative that brings traveling exhibitions about subjects of national importance to small towns across America.

Asset ID #7543