Interview Transcription (Translated)

Interviewer: Okay, now we’re going to talk a little bit about Norwegian food traditions and about sjakkruter and serinakaker. We’ll start with one question. So how was Christmas at home, what types of food traditions did you have?

Else: We had a lot of---we made a lot--- and we slaughtered animals, but that was about it. Then we made smulteringer and fattigmenn and other things we had to boil in lard. At home we also had serinakaker.

Interviewer: So you had serinakaker at your house?

Else: Yes, we had serinakaker. We didn’t really have sjakkruter; I started doing that more when we lived in Japan. But we had serinakaker and other small cookies. When I was a kid we didn’t have electronic oven, so we had to use a wooden stove.

Interviewer: So you had to make a fire in the oven, then?

Else: Yes, we had to make a fire. When I was young we got an electronic oven in 1935 or 1940, and that was a lot of fun. It was a lot easier to boil or bake when we had electricity.

Interviewer: Okay. Grandpa, what about you?

Magnus: What about me?

Interviewer: Yes, what were the food traditions with you during Christmas?

Magnus: Well, to talk about animals, we had a slaughter pig that we slaughtered during Christmas. We saved the blood and made blood sausage, blood dumplings, and we used the intestines to…

Interviewer: What?

Magnus: We cleaned the small intestine and made minced meat or sausages or blood sausages or things like that.

Interviewer: Okay. Did you have a lot of cakes and cookies? Or was it mostly---

Magnus: No, it was mostly lefse. For Christmas we made several types of lefse. I remember one type where we put eggs on top. And some of them were similar to meringue pie, and we had a rolling pin with a pattern in it to make them prettier. And we also had different ypes of frosting/butter on the lefse. That’s what I remember. And we had some waffles that were hard.

Marte-Marie: Did you have small cookies?

Magnus: No, there wasn’t that much. It was mostly lefse and such things. Of what I can remember at least..

Marte-Marie: But you slaughtered animals and made sausages at your house too, right, Mom? Else: Yes we did that too. And we covered the meat and put it in water. There was a lot of good meat in the head of the pig. And we would cut it up after.

Interviewer: Oh yeah?

Else: And we also pressed it too. And the hip of the pig we salted and dried it. Did you have mutton?

Magnus: Yes, we had mutton.
Else: We dried that too, you know. When it was salted well enough it would last a long time.

Interviewer: Okay.
Magnus: And my father liked mutton a lot.

Else: That’s from the sheep right? Mutton, that’s from the sheep?

Magnus: Yes.

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-Marie: I was thinking, at your dad’s house. Did you make small cookies? You had a wooden stove, right?

Sigmund: [inaudible]

Marte-Marie: Did you hear what dad said?

Interviewer: No.

Marte-Marie: He says they had a wooden stove until 1964 when they moved southward.

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-Marie: But his mother bought a couple different types of food. And you had some small cookies and stjerner? I think you had serinakaker too?

Sigmund: [inaudible]

Marte-Marie: Did you hear what your dad said?

Interviewer: No, wait a minute, it was a little bit fast. So a wooden stove until 1960?

Marte-Marie: Yes, until 1963.  

Interviewer: And what types of food was it during Christmas? What types of cookies?

Marte-Marie (for Sigmund): Stjerner and fattigmenn.  

Interviwer: Did you have serinakaker too?

Marte-Marie: Yes, I think you had that? They had some dry cookies, he said.

Sigmund: We had a lot of different cookies, most of them dry.

Marte-Marie: And a lot of lamb too, right?

Sigmund: [inaudible]

Marte-Marie: He says they had both lamb and rein deer meat.  

Else: I remember on Christmas Eve, in the middle of the day we would have something called mølje. That was flatbread what we had on a plate and then poured some fatty liquid over it. That was what we ate during the day, and then we had potatoes, vegetables, and lamb chops. Some people ate ribs too. We had also made homemade meatballs that we ate then too.

Marte-Marie: Are you thinking of the ones made of pork or lamb, mom?

Else: I’m thinking of the ones made of pork.

Magnus: We didn’t have that much food on Christmas Eve. Then we had rice porridge, that was Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we had a feast.

Interviewer: So that was Christmas Day?

Magnus: We had eggs and lefse and then my dad read the nativity story and did a couple Christmas songs. “Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker” was a favorite. That was all for breakfast. Christmas Day was the big festive feast.

Interviewer: Okay. And mom, how was Christmas food at your house during Christmas?

Marte-Marie: [inaudible]

Interviewer: What?

Marte-Marie: Well, that has changed a lot, but when we lived in Japan we had a lot of Christmas cakes and cookies.

Interviewer: So you had a lot of Christmas cookies?

Marte-Marie: There were Christmas cookies, your grandma made a lot. Brought it to church too. And we had lamb chops. I don’t remember exactly what we had on Christmas Eve, but we had a lot. I remember sjakkruter very well. Sjakkruter, krumkaker, and serinakaker.

Else: We had some smulteringer too.
Marte-Marie: Yes, we had some smulteringer too, and we had the sjakkruter that we really enjoyed.

Interviewer: Uh huh.

Marte-Marie: Then we had --- When I was  big enough --- Because the Japanese would walk around singing, kind of like the American tradition of Christmas caroling. They would come to our house last, during th evening, and then they got Japanese candy, tea, and Norwegian cookies. And when I was big enough I was allowed to stay up. And then it was cookies, and cookies, and cookies and cookies.

Interviewer: Uh huh.

Magnus: The reason for picking us last was because we invited them in and gave the cookies, candy, and tea.

Interviewer: Oh, that sounds so fun.  

Else: It could be as late as 10 p.m.

Interviewer: That sounds so nice.  

Marte-Marie: Yes, it must have been around nine or ten, and it was so much fun.

Interviewer: I can only imagine.  

Marte-Marie: There were so many cookies. They really liked coming over, and I knew most of them.

Interviewer: Uh huh.

Marte-Marie: Yes, and I knew many people at the Norwegian school so we baked a lot. Yasuko’s mother also joined, because she was our maid at home.

Interviewer: Oh right, uh huh. Okay.

Marte-Marie: I think the sjakkruter were the most popular, we had different colors and everything.

Interviewer: Oh yeah, Uh huh. Okay. I’ll start on the rest of the questions now. When do you typically serve sjakkruter and serinakaker.

Marte-Marie: When we serve it?

Interviewer: Yes. Is it during a certain time, or is it ---

Else: We usually serve it around coffee time?
Marte-Marie: But, Ellen-Marie, there are a lot of different traditions around it. Some feel that these cookies should only be eating from December 23rd or Christmas Eve. But most people eat it beforehand. Some have a rule that you can’t have any until Christmas Eve, but many uses advent to enjoy the cookies. That’s like what we’ve done here at home. So advent is when you enjoy all of these.

Interviewer: Yes.

Marte-Marie: Many people call it out-and-in cookies. Because they go out-of-the-box and into-the-box.

Interviewer: Okay. Let’s see here.

Else: Already there are Christmas cookies for sale in the store.

Interviewer: Oh really?

Else: We looked at them the other day.  

Marte-Marie: And the this tradition --- we have --- let’s see --- now there are so many traditions when it comes to cookies and pastries. But very many people buy cakes or go to Christmas fairs and buy these cookies we’ve talked about.

Interviewer: Uh huh.

Marte-Marie: And we also buy something from the store so that we don’t have to buy that many. But the tradition is that there is supposed to be seven different ones.

Interviewer: Yes.  

Marte-Marie: So --- yes, there is a large portion that if you have kids you will bake with them.

Interviewer: Uh huh, so what is your favorite memory from making these types of cookies?

Marte-Marie: You should go first since you’re the oldest. We can all answer if, but grandma, you should answer first.

Else: There are a couple memories, but what stand out to me is the cookies for Christmas like smulteringer and fattigmenn. These were the biggest one --- and we also had other small cookies though.

Marte-Marie: But what was your best memory?

Interviewer: Something about making them or something like that?

Marte-Marie: What kind of memory stands out to you?

Else: Well, I would make it with my brother, Ole Johan, and we always waited for the baking to get done. I remember it was fun to take them out of the oven when we were little. We would cut out rings in the dough and we kept the ones that were left over. Those we could eat afterwards. We could eat the ones from the kransekake and smulteringer. Fattigmenn we could also eat right away during Christmas.

Interviewer: Okay.

Magnus: In the basement we had a large stove. It contained a sort of a griddle, and it was a wooden oven. We made hardinglefse and other types of lefse.

Marte-Marie: Could you taste it too?

Magnus: Yes.

Marte-Marie: Sigmund, what about you? What was your favorite memory of making cookies and cakes.

Sigmund: [inaudible]

Marte-Marie: Anything positive of making something? Cookies and Christmas or ---

Sigmund: [inaudible]

M: So you stood and watched them bake, and then you tasted at the end? You made stjerner too, right?

Sigmund: Yes, there were stjerner and other small cookies.

Else: There are different from all the different places in the country.

Interviewer: So what was your favorite memory, dad?

Marte-Marie: Yes, there were lefser and things like that you talked about, right, Sigmund.

Sigmund: Yes.  

Marte-Marie: There were mostly tasting that was in those memories, since he didn’t participate that much in the baking.

Interviewer: Okay. Then what about you, mom?

Marte-Marie: That was ---well, we’ve made so many cakes and cookies. Especially in Tsuyama. There I baked a lot and Yasuko’s mother was also with us. It was especially fun with the sjakkruter since there were a lot of colors. That’s like what we’ve done in our family. We have done so many different colors throughout the years and changed it a lot and experimented. In the beginning we only had brown and white, but we found out that we wanted red and white too because it looked nice. It’s nice to make so many different things with it. I’m trying to remember --- I don’t think I was allowed to bake kransekake. Then I just stood there to watch. I think it was sjakkruter that was the most fun to make. But it was fun both to watch and bake. We can make eyes with the dough in the sjakkruter.

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-Marie: [inaudible]

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-Marie: They need to stay cold for about an hour, you know, before we can put it into the oven, and then I would taste the dough.

Magnus: I remember a lot from Christmas too. We didn’t really have cookies, but we had oranges. We didn’t get any fruit during the year, but for Christmas, Turid’s father brought a couple crates of oranges. I remember those crates of oranges, because they smelled so much like oranges. So eating oranges during Christmas was great. And Oline when she lived in Stavanger, she even brought bananas! It was the nicest thing I can remember.

Interviewer: I remember you’ve talked about the oranges before. This might be a weird question, but how does these memories make you feel? Are they good memories or nostalgia, or how do you feel?

Magnus: Yes, I think it’s nostalgia. I remember so much from eating fattigmenn,  and eating with the family. Fattigmenn and stjerner. And I think it was called jødekaker.

Marte-Marie: Yes, that’s right, Ellen-Marie, there is something called jødekaker. It kind of looks like stjerner.

Else: Yes.

Marte-Marie: And stjerner, they’re very popular.

Else: Yes, some of these you would bake with an almond on top.

Marte-Marie: But you don’t do that when you make stjerner.

Else: No.  

Interviewer: Uh huh. Okay. If you --- if we focus on sjakkruter and serinakaker. How was the recipe changed over time? Has it changed at all?

Marte-Marie: We use less flour, and we make them in bigger portions now.

Else: Yes, we do.  

Interviewer: So the portions are different, and the colors that --- the colors have changed a little.

Marte-Marie: Yes, before it was only cocoa they used, I think that was it.

Else: Yes, that was it. In one of the recipe books it said cocoa, and for the white ones we used flour to make them more white. We also used egg and sugar. Then the “normal” dough becomes lighter.

Interviewer: Yes.

Marte-Marie: Here is a book where they talk about sjakkruter and other cookies.

Interviewer: Okay. Who normally makes sjakkruter and serinakaker? You can answer either based on your childhood or now.

Else: What did you say?

Interviewer: Who normally made the cookies?

Marte-Marie: Do you mean if it were the parents or the kids?
Interviewer: Yes, parents or children or both.

Marte-Marie: It is different from home to home. Sigmund? What about home at your house, were you and Arnodd also baking? Or was it just your mom or your sister, Torunn, with?

Sigmund: [inaudible]

Marte-Marie: So it is different from home to home.

Interviewer: So at dad’s house, who made them?

Marte-Marie: His mom would make it with aunt Borghild, and sometimes Torunn was with too. It is difficult, but some people meet at schools if one of them is a teacher and make cookies. Many people do it at Botne elementary school, my school. But I’m used to from home and what your grandma is used to that the children are with. Then it becomes like a family time.

Interviewer: Okay.

Else: It is very different when you have kids with because then you have to make sure they don’t burn themselves.

Interviewer: So what makes these cookies Norwegian?

Marte-Marie: What makes them --- I think they originally come form other countries. I don’t know, but if you make a quick online search you will find out the country of origin. And if you take sjakkruter, for example they don’t have a Scandinavian country of origin. But serinakaker, they were named by a woman called Serina.

Interviewer: So it is in a way more Christmas traditions to make seven types of cookies and eat them at home that’s more Norwegian?

Marte-Marie: It depends but sjakkruter and serinakaker are made together because they’re made on the same dough. I’ve checked some information about sjakkruter. [inaudible]. It all comes out of the dough, in a way.

Interviewer: Okay. [interrupted] What?

Else: If you don’t know anything else, I’m sure you’ll find more online.

Marte-Marie: We make more changes now to the recipe because everything is a lot easier now. When you had them straight on the oven you had to put more butter on it and watch it better.

Interviewer: So where --- If you think in a way --- this is more directed to you, grandma and grandpa --- with the ingredients in mind for serinakaker and sjakkruter. Was it easy to get, or was the ingredients difficult to get?

Else: Almonds weren’t that easy to get.

Marte-Marie: But almonds aren’t in the dough, though.

Else: But we do put it on the top.
Marte-Marie: Oh, on the top, yes.

Else: We sprinkle it, but it’s not in the dough.

Interviewer: So almonds were the only difficult thing to get? All the other ingredients you had in your house?

Else: [inaudible] If you leaved close to a town where there were a lot of stores and such, it was easy. Your grandpa had less sjakkruter and serinakaker, didn’t you?

Magnus: Yes we couldn’t always get a hold of everything. [inaudible]

Interviewer: What?

Magnus: During the war we had ration cards for sugar.

Else: And margarine?

Magnus: And margarine and flour too.

Marte-Marie: But I’m sure you made margarine too?

MAgnus: Yes, and flour I remember we went to the mill and made several different things.

Interviewer: So that was maybe why you made more lefse and stuck to that?

Magnus: Eh yes, that might be it, I don’t really know why.

Marte-Marie: Hey, Ellen-Marie, I remember something about the recipe. Before they used to use real butter.

Interview: Okay.

Marte-Marie: Now we use margarine, and margarine has now less and less fat. Some even use a specific type of milk. But before they only used butter.

Else: Sometimes they used cream too. They made whipping cream too, until it turned into butter.

Interviewer: Okay.

Magnus: We churned it ourselves. Cranked it until it eventually turned into butter.

Interviewer: Okay. Let’s see. What is normally served next to it? It is mostly just coffee?

Magnus: With all of us, I think we just serve with coffee.

Interviewer. Okay. About how long time does it ---

Marte-Marie: And lemonade for the kids too.

Interview: Oh, lemonade? So how long does it take to prepare serinakaker and sjakkruter?

Marte-Marie: Do you mean baking or serving?

Interviewer: Baking.

Else: Well, it depends on how quick you stir it.

Marte-Marie: Yeah, but that’s another difference from the old days. Before they used to knead it with their hands, but now we can use a kitchen mixer. And before they needed to let it sit for a longer time, but now we can just put it in the fridge.

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-Marie: But I’d like to say --- if you focus on sjakkruter, it takes about five minutes to mix the dough, and than you shape the dough, and let it sit cold for at least an hour.

Interviewer: So about an hour?

Marte-Marie: One to two hours until it’s become stiff, and then you cut it and bake it in a medium warm oven.

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-Marie: And, Ellen-Marie, here in the old recipe it says a medium warm oven, but no specific number. That’s because it’s an old recipe.

Interviewer: Okay. So has the cookies, especially sjakkruter  and serinakaker, has the popularity changed over time or has it been stable?

Marte-Marie: But, Ellen-Marie, there is one thing about sjakkruter, no, serinakaker because they don’t have to stay long, because we just make them into circles and roll it with a spoon, and that is quicker than sjakkruter.

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-Marie: The entire thing lasts about half an hour to 45 minutes. But with sjakkruter you’re supposed to enjoy it and make shapes with it. And then it needs to stay cold for an hour and then in the oven for about ten minutes.

Interviewer: Okay. Then we --- same question ---Has the popularity changed over time or has it been pretty popular throughout the years.

Marte-Marie: What do you say?

Else: No, I think serinakaker --- no, sjakkruter – became more popular throughout the ages. But serinakaker has been pretty stable.

Interviewer: Okay.

Marte-marie: Serinakaker has become more normal, because it takes less time to prepare.

Interviewer: Yes. Okay. So ---

Marte-Marie: But, Ellen-Marie, småkaker has become less popular than before.

Magnus: It used to belong to Christmas more, and something you just made during Christmas. For us it was very good lefser.

Interviewer: Okay.

Else: It’s still many people that make it, though.

Interviewer: Okay, so last question. Do you know if this recipe was brought with to USA, and if it was made by immigrants? Or was it made mostly in Norway?

Else: Oh, I’m sure they brought it to USA.

Marte-Marie: Your dad says he thinks that too. What about you, grandpa?

Magnus: Yes, I think they brought it with. Because the best kumla I’ve tasted was made by a Norwegian-American in the USA.

Marte-Marie: Those who emigrated brought with them things like this, so I bet they’re just as good in USA as here in Norway. Especially until the middle of 1900 so that the Christmas traditions were very important. That was something the Norwegians especially brought with them.

Interviewer: Okay.

Magnus: A lot of lefse in America too. That’s also something they brought with them.

Interviewer: Let’s see. I think…

Else: But, Ellen-Marie, I thought about what we did during Christmas. I remember from home that we cleaned a lot, because it had to be spotless. Both walls and ceilings, and even if it was two meters tall. Everything had to be extra clean. Then we polished the silver and everything. Then we slaughtered and made food. Then we made cookies.-----