(inspiring music) - [Announcer] On this episode of "Postcards"... - I would say that whatever I make is never just a reproduction of an old textile, even though I think that is also a very valuable thing to do.

- I promote lutefisk, but I do not eat lutefisk myself.

People haven't tried it, they're sometimes surprised by the taste and the texture of it all, and the smell.

(air whooshes) (lively upbeat music) (lively upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts Calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar, showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 Kram, online at 967kram.com.

(cheerful music) - You can choose to study history through food or you could study architecture or other types of art.

For me, textiles are the material culture that I find so interesting to use to examine history (classical music) (cheery music) In many countries and tapestry traditions, you would use a series of elaborate types of feeders, and in Norway, they just tend to use a fork.

And so that's the way I learned to weave tapestry and it's the way I've continued.

(mysterious folk music) I grew up on a farm in Bygland outside of East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and I came down to the University of Minnesota.

It was the big city, I wanted to go to the big college, and I came down and stayed for the weekend with my Great Aunt Eileen, who was a school teacher in Minneapolis.

She said to me, she goes, "You must take Norwegian."

Then I took some weaving classes during college, and when I finished college, I decided, well, I really want to improve my Norwegian.

So I decided to go to weaving school in Norway and started a six month adventure of only speaking Norwegian.

I came back and I went to graduate school and I became a librarian, and I spent the majority of my career with the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.

I had the best career ever.

I grew up with technology in libraries and in the legislature.

So I did decades of research, which was my love.

And in the meantime, I continued to weave and I always said, "Well, I wish I had more time to weave.

I wish I had more time to weave."

And so when it came time for early retirement, I thought, "Now... Now I'm gonna weave all the time."

I got a studio and I set up my giant loom there and boxes and boxes of yarn, and I did weave, well, quite a bit.

What I learned though, that after the decades of research that I enjoy the research and investigation as much as I do the actual weaving, so kind of gone on two parallel tracks.

I also started to edit the Norwegian Textile Letter.

It's a marvelous newsletter, I have many contributors, many people who write articles in Norway and in the United States, people who translate for me and I write things, and there's never a lack of material to write about.

(lively folk music) I think with my interest in Scandinavian weaving, that being in Minnesota and having access to the Weavers Guild of Minnesota, and our Scandinavian Weavers Study Group has been so enriching.

There is a group of us putting on this warp, and if you look underneath, you can see that several people have already woven pieces in different colors.

And for me at home, I no longer have a big floor loom, but yet if I keep participating in the group projects here doing these, then I still get to weave those types of techniques as well as tapestry.

My strongest mentor in weaving was Lila Nelson and I remember as a young woman in college, seeing some weavings done by Lila and thinking, "Oh my gosh, if I could ever weave like Lila.

Oh, what if I met Lila?"

And then she turned out to be a wonderful friend for many years.

So Lila was important in the Scandinavian Weavers Group, and the Weavers Guild in general, is a really strong community of weavers.

(calming folk music) There was a very famous Norwegian tapestry weaver at the turn of the 20th century named Frida Hansen.

And a museum curator called and said, "There was this tapestry of these swans and maidens Sørover or southward, and it was bought by somebody in the US but we don't know where it is now.

Do you know where it is now?"

And my thought was, "Well, no I don't but I can find out.

I'm a librarian, I'll find out."

(intriguing music) So I launched on this research and discovered a lot about the woman who bought it, Berthea Aske Bergh in 1903.

And she displayed it multiple times in museums and in private galleries until about 1930, and then it disappeared.

There were no more news articles about it.

I went to the New York Public Library Archives, I went to archives in Brooklyn to see if there were probate records, I went to museum collections and I turned up dry.

I had written an article in the Norwegian Textile Letter, "Will We Ever Find the Missing Swans and Maidens?"

And then a couple of years later, Peter Pap, who is a noted rug dealer on the east coast, sent me an email and he said, "I found your missing swans and maidens!"

As it turned out, he had found it in the estate of a friend of his who had died.

And he unfolded this beautiful tapestry that's 10 feet by 11 feet.

It's huge and it was in perfect condition.

And he Googled it and the first thing he came up with, was my articles.

I didn't actually solve that mystery myself, but I got to be involved in the...

When it was cleaned and when it was displayed and I've done lectures about the piece and about Frida Hansen, so Frida Hansen is much closer to me now.

(calming piano music) So when you get a skein of yarn, it comes like this and you have to make it into a ball.

(tool gears spinning) Textiles have had value in different ways.

They are important to staying alive, you had to have thick woolen textiles in order to stay warm in a snowy northern climate.

But also over the centuries, there have been beautiful decorative techniques that have evolved and that was very important to the family and showed wealth and the cleverness of the weaver.

I think textiles have been highly valued within Norwegian culture, within folk culture in many places around the world.

(relaxing classical piano music) I would say that whatever I make is never just a reproduction of an old textile, even though I think that is also a very valuable thing to do.

But I do appreciate the historical Norwegian tapestry or billedvev, it's called billedvev, which actually means picture weaving.

So I really like this sort of flat abstracted yet sort of fresh look of the tapestries.

And so I've made a couple that are in that spirit and one is the one of my great-grandmother with chickens.

And it's based on a photograph that's from about 1898.

And the other one I made is, I always wanted to make a billedvev with a blue horse, or a red horse, or a green horse because those show up in the old ones.

So I made a tapestry similar to part of one of the tapestries owned by Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum.

This is the tapestry of my daughter as a queen.

So I wove the blue horse but I put my daughter on the horse and rather than a ruff, she has a scarf and she's holding a cell phone so it's pretty modern.

But lots of elements of the old, historical Norwegian textiles are in the background.

This was a common tree that was on the edge but here's the surveillance camera that's... After I developed my research interest and my personal weaving interest in historical Norwegian billedvev I taught workshops at Vesterheim and elsewhere.

Now I've developed my expertise in Frida Hansen's Transparent Tapestry Workshop and I am loving doing the workshops in this technique.

It's so engaging and energizing to see other people discover the technique.

Looking at the pieces I've made and seeing people understand the technique and decide what they're going to do, is enormously fun.

(lively folk music) I once had a weaving teacher, a tapestry weaving teacher named Ingvar Bølgan who's still teaching tapestry in Norway and I loved what she said, "Tradition can't stand still, you always have to be moving forward.

You can't just copy the old stuff, you have to bring something new to it."

She also was the person that said, "Postage stamps!

People are only weaving tiny postage stamps, you need to weave big!"

And and I like to do that too, so I always try to weave big.

Weaving is something that has insinuated into my life in a myriad of ways.

It's interesting historically, it tells me about the material culture, but also when I am weaving, it's a puzzle to figure out what's going to happen and will I have to take it out and figure it out all again.

I think that weaving is like any handcraft in that you can solve... You solve problems and in that way, I think you gain confidence in all sorts of areas of your life.

(lively folk music) - As far as the Lutefisk Eating Contest goes, like I'd eat a lot of lefse, or I'd eat a lot of sweet soup or anything like that, but I'll eat anything but lutefisk.

(crew laughs) (lutefisk sloshes) (classical music) - I have never had any bad lutefisk.

(whimsical music) - About 1982 is when a bunch of Chamber Members got together and decided they were gonna declare Madison the Lutefisk Capital of the USA.

They bought that 25 foot long giant codfish that is now named Lou T. Fisk that's out in the park, and we've been the Lutefisk Capital ever since.

I promote lutefisk but I do not eat lutefisk myself.

People haven't tried it, they're sometimes surprised by the taste and the texture of it all, and the smell.

You know, it's not like... You know, people are thinking a plate of walleye here.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nothing like walleye.

Lutefisk is dried cod, originally was something the Vikings or the travelers over sea voyages took cod dried it and soaked it in lye to preserve it.

And they didn't need to refrigerator it that way so they could haul on long sea voyages across and then eat it, you know, you'd soak it to get the lye out, then you could eat the fish and the fish would be preserved.

(film static crinkling) You're listening to Q92 KLQP, Madison, Dawson, 92.1 FM.

Say, we wanna remind you that our World Lutefisk Eating Champion Jerry Osteraas, is ready to take on all challengers in the Lutefisk Eating Contest coming up during Norsefest in November.

The lutefisk comes from the local grocery store.

(terrifying horror music) And it's prepared by the ladies over at the VFW.

(trolley knocking) (VFW Chef recoils) (gentleman laughs) - It tastes look so good, Norwegians love it.

- But us German's sure don't.

Pew, can you hit the smell on the camera?

(VFW crew laughs) - And they're pretty good at it cause people, when they eat this lutefisk they say, "Boy, this is some good lutefisk."

- I'm worried about the texture of it, if it's gonna be okay.

- It's good and flaky, and all that.

That's what you kind of wanna, I guess go for, this flaky texture.

- Well, if they don't cure it right, process it right, when you cook it, gets like jelly and it's not very nice.

- Cause otherwise it becomes like fish jello, which is most of the lutefisk that I've seen, and it really isn't all that appealing.

- And we cook it in there.

- [Gentleman] Oh.

- It's the steam oven.

(plastic crinkling) (cod sloshes) They think...

They think they're gonna go through more than a hundred pounds, I got new for 'em, It's not my first rodeo.

She'd probably wanna put gloves on.

- [VFW Staff] Okay.

(pan shuffling) Do we wanna microwave?

(pan shuffles) - Might be dishin'.

(pan slides) Okay.

(steamer rumbles) - [VFW Chef] Well, it looks to me... - [VFM Team] Well, that one was boiling but this one- - [VFW Chef] That one wasn't.

(money shuffles) (whimsical music) - [Maynard] We have three categories, we've got the Guppies for the beginning lutefisk eaters.

And we have the Walleyes, that'd be people that enjoy it, but they don't wanna really stuff themselves with it.

And then we have the Sharks Division, which would be those who wish to take on Jerry Osteraas our Champion and eat copious amounts of of cod.

- We're the official measurement team here.

- [Maynard] The way it works, it's a timed event and if you're a Shark, you got a pound of lutefisk on your plate but you have like five minutes to eat.

If you're game for more, they'll put another pound for the sharks and that just continues on.

Then they have five minutes or whatever to eat and then take a break again.

And that's the way it continues on.

Until somebody finally says, "No, I can't take anymore."

That's, "I'm done."

And usually Jerry is still sitting there eating and wanting more but we'll see what happens this year (participants indistinctly chatting) - Thank you.

- For our 50th anniversary of Norsefest, we set a goal months and months ago of having 50 eaters for our Norsefest Eating Competition, and we have over 50 eaters for our 50th anniversary.

- [Andy] Have you had lutefisk before?

- I actually haven't, this is gonna be the first time.

- I've got my bowl of butter.

(contestant laughs) - That's all you need and a tool.

- My family just decided to sign up, so I thought I joined them.

- It's a family tradition.

- 15 to 20 years ago, I would've made a very good attempt at first.

Now I don't think I'm gonna do it.

- I don't know of any other Lutefisk Eating Contests around.

I'm not sure that anybody could take on our champion.

I've seen him eat eight pounds in one sitting, which when you look at a pound on a plate, a pound of lutefisk on a plate really fills it up.

And to think you're going to eat eight of 'em, that's a lot.

- Okay, take a picture of us.

- Yeah.

- That guy is huge.

- Jerry Osteraas, our Lutefisk Eating Champion is a big man.

He prepares by, I think, what did he tell me one time?

That he has a little cod liver oil or something that he eats prior to the contest.

Gotta lubricate the whole system I guess, and doesn't eat a lot prior to the contest.

- [Andy] Bring the butter in here.

- [VFW Assistant] Okay.

- The only person that's ever beat Jerry was, I believe his brother-in-Law but then he had a heart attack about a week after the contest one time, and we haven't tied all that together, but he never entered the contest again.

Yeah, I suppose he didn't wanna take any chances.

So Jerry just has had the crown ever since and been...

It's been basically unchallenged.

He enjoys the glory, which is good 'cause we don't give him very much cash for this so... - The Sharks'll eat a pound at a time.

- That's intense.

- So all 50 of them will eat, start eating and we'll go through 19 pounds in the first five minutes.

- That's insane, oh gosh.

And they can smell you from South Dakota, I'm sure, yeah.

(accordion music) (folks indistinctly chatting) - [Guest] There's one of 'em.

(accordion music) (folks indistinctly chatting) There's one of 'em.

(accordion music) (folks indistinctly chatting) (contestants applauding) - Okay, we wanna thank you for everything you've done to be our representative over all these years as Lutefisk Eating Champion.

You're gonna have some good challengers tonight, so hopefully you can hang on your record this evening.

- [Andy] Guppies get this portion.

- [VFW Staff] There's butter on here.

- [Maynard] Here Adam, run that out to him.

♪ I got goes and I'm gonna go get him ♪ ♪ And he got to do this then ♪ ♪ I'm gonna shred him up ♪ (fast indistinct singing) ♪ Make him take (indistinct) ♪ ♪ Once and for all you Jack and Jills ♪ ♪ Gonna find out what makes you tick ♪ ♪ Hopin' this song it brings you thrills ♪ ♪ Get you moving last quick ♪ ♪ If you're havin' trouble catching fire ♪ ♪ This song's gonna make you sprint ♪ Alright, we're gonna count down this first round with audience participation.

Five, four, three, two, one.

- [Maynard] Let's dig in.

- [Supporter] Come on, Sam, let's go!

(polka music) ♪ On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees ♪ ♪ The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings ♪ ♪ In The Big Rock Candy Mountain ♪ ("Big Rock Candy Mountain" by Harry McClintock) - Five... - [Maynard] Four, three, two, one.

Okay, time up on the first one.

- Eight, nine, 10, 22, 23?

(lively polka music) - [Maynard] Excuse me.

Here you go, Jimmy.

- [Maynard] Five, four, three, two, one, dig in.

- Three minutes remaining!

Hey, you gonna keep going?

- Yeah.

(Andy laughs) - [Maynard] We have the bags just in case.

(zany music) (crowd indistinctly chats) - 18 guppies, 18 guppies.

Three Sharks, four Sharks.

- [Maynard] Are we running low on Lutefisk?

Really?

(lively music) (crowd indistinctly chats) Yeah, we got enough now, guys?

- [VFW Staff] We only needed... - 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four... Hey!

- All the Lutefisk in Madison is just about gone, so we're gonna cut off the Guppies of the Walleyes.

(crowd booing) However... - You have consumed 80 pounds of lutefisk.

- We did put 80 pounds of lutefisk and we've gone and got more, and we've cooked all the lutefisk we can find.

So the Guppies, we're gonna draw for those first, second, and third.

For the Walleyes, same thing.

We're gonna have them registered first, second, and third and give away the trophy to somebody in the Walleye division.

And here's what's gonna happen to the Sharks, we're gonna dish up what lutefisk we have left and it's gonna be first one done.

- He wasn't backing down, he was gonna win it baby.

- It was good, it was good.

It sucks, they had to cut it off.

- Maybe next year if they have it, I'll practice.

- [Andy] Okay, we ready to start?

- [Maynard] Count 'em down.

Count 'em down, here we go, five, four, three, two, one, go!

- [Supporter] Come on, Jerry!

- [Andy] First empty plate takes the belt!

(polka music) (indistinct chatting) Winner!

(audience applauds) - There you go.

(contestant laughs) - Thank you.

- You know, I'm proud of you.

- [Andy] Gentlemen, do you wanna have a second place?

Do you wanna keep going for a second?

Or you wanna be done?

- [Viewer] Go for it!

- [Audience] Second, second!

- [Maynard] Andy, do we have a second and third?

- [Andy] No, we're washed out, they're all done.

(everyone laughs) We have a winner.

- [Maynard] Hey, (indistinct) all right!

- Well, thank you sweetheart.

- [Maynard] Congratulations, you did well tonight.

- We have a new champion, woo!

- [VFW Staff] You ate two plates, yeah.

- You can touch if you want.

- Really?

- You can touch if you want.

(Jimmy laughs) ♪ Forevermore ♪ - After 2023, I think it's maybe time.

I think Jerry's probably getting close to retirement.

He is been slowing down a little bit the last couple of years as have the rest of us involved with the contest.

So I think there's a great future for lutefisk with the younger generation coming up.

I think, you know, they'll see what Jerry has accomplished over the years and maybe will latch onto this.

We're hoping, you know, so we can keep this going.

- It is definitely a unique heritage for Madison, Minnesota.

It's not my favorite meal but I think it's really cool that we have something that we can lay claim to as the Lutefisk Capital of the USA.

- [Interviewer] Perfectly diplomatic answer.

(Andy laughs) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.

Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts Calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar.

Showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 Kram, online at 967kram.com.

(upbeat music)