Weird Foods of Wisconsin Christmas

Sorry all for not posting for a while, but I have been terribly sick - fever, cough, head filled with cement. In fact, I have been sleeping until at least 10 every day for almost a week, which all of you know is unheard of. So, yup I am sick!

Well, I am feeling a little better today so I thought I would talk about the weird foods one finds at Christmas gatherings in many parts of Wisconsin... some of which are tasty and others which should be banished from the face of the earth.

Wolf Bait - this one is actually not bad even with the strange name. It is basically cream cheese, chopped up onion, and chopped up dried chipped beef or ham. Mix it all together and serve with buttery crackers. Yum yum! But it will make you need some mouthwash.

Cannibal Sandwiches - Good ground beef, chopped green peppers, chopped onions - mixed together with salt and pepper. Serve raw with rye bread. Yup, no cooking. I don't see this as often now as there have been so many e coli scares, but it used to be quite common. I always found it hilarious, considering how many cannibal grave robbing serial killers Wisconsin has produced over the years.

Lutefisk - This is a Scandihoovian tradition. It is basically cod fish that has been preserved in lye. Yes, lye. The same stuff mobsters use to dissolve bodies in remote burial sites. Basically, the pye-preserved cod gets rinsed and rinsed and rinsed again. Then it is boiled until it looks like a giant glob of snot. It is served with lefse (potato flatbread) and butter and sometimes sliced onion. Gack.

All in all, Christmas was ok. Visiting the stepfather's family was a bit like being in a casino - so many lights and noise and yelling and smoking. No jackpots though! And a definite lack of vegetables. I am not used to living n a situation where the meat is central and the veggie is the condiment. It is good to be home...