Where’s the Fish?
Norwegian immigrants began to settle the open lands of Wisconsin starting in the 1840s and 50’s. Thanks to the Homestead Act, cheap land allowed these American newcomers to have a new start with their own farms and homes.
Peggy Hager, senior lecturer of Scandinavian studies at UW-Madison, says when looking at Norwegian immigration to America, it is important to talk about push and pull factors related to why people left Norway in large numbers in the late nineteenth century.
“So many people left Norway because there was a shortage of land and an increase in population, and it was often the oldest son who got the land, so people had big families, and they wanted to have a life of their own, so that was the push factor,” Hager says. “And then the pull factor was there was available land here in Wisconsin, and that encouraged people to leave and settle.”
Norwegian immigrants who were already settled in America often wrote home to relatives and friends in Norway, articulating their new experiences in the New World. These “America Letters,” as they were known, were a foundation for the Norwegian settlement on Wisconsin land. Hager says Norwegian immigrants first settled the Koshkonong area in south central Wisconsin.
Photo by: Molly Reppen
When the Norwegians came to the Midwest, they were without their coastlines and fresh cod. This included their lutefisk, a staple in many Norwegians’ diets, especially for those who lived inland and could not get access to fresh fish. In Wisconsin, the lack of available fish made it difficult to adjust their eating habits.
Hager’s husband, a born and bred Norwegian, moved to America in the late 1970s, and she says the first thing people would ask him was how often he would eat lutefisk.
“He has never eaten it, and his comment was always, ‘Yeah, I won’t touch that stuff. I ain’t that poor,’ because in Norway, it was a way of preserving fish. If you lived along the coast, you ate fresh fish, and people that were inland would eat lutefisk because it was what you could eat in the winter,” Hager says.
It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that Norwegian-Americans could get cod in the Midwest. It was at this time that lutefisk became a staple at Lutheran churches and Norwegian homes. Lutefisk became associated with ancestry and the old country and started rising in popularity in the 1930s.
Since then, Norwegian-Americans have equated lutefisk with their homeland, a symbol of struggle and experience.
“Lutefisk is something that is not that tasty for a lot of people. It smells kind of bad, but you eat it because it’s part of the experience,” Hager says. “Lutefisk is more than just food. It’s sort of the experience of roughing it and toughing it to identify with your family that made this rough trip over the ocean.”
