December 22, 2020
BY JACKIE VARRIANO | TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
Lefse. It’s a paper-thin flatbread, made from potatoes and cooked on a griddle, flipped with a long, narrow wooden stick, and eaten slathered with butter, sugar and sometimes cinnamon. If you’re of Norwegian heritage, you’ve most likely eaten it at Thanksgiving or Christmas for as long as you can remember.
Charles Schrag has been making Norwegian lefse, a potato-based flatbread typically reserved for the holidays, since he was young. On Dec. 7, Schrag shows off some of his lefse near his Seattle-area home. (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times/TNS)
Growing up, when celebrating Christmas with my dad’s side of the family, lefse (pronounced “lef-suh”) was an outlier on the table, sitting on a cut crystal platter among bowls of meatballs, cavatelli, cheese-filled ravioli and platters of braciola. It was the one thing my Grandma Jean (the lone Norwegian amid her Italian husband and their seven children) had from her side of the family.