Barb Olson Krumkake Interview 11/5/15

Recording length: 12:14

Derek: So, this is my grandmother Barbara Olson and we are going to talk a bit about Krumkake, which is a Scandinavian dish. So, first I have a few questions related about the food itself and later I will get into questions about your personal history with the recipe, or with the food dish at least. Okay? So the first question I have for you is; where did you obtain the recipe and how?

Barbara: The one recipe that I used a lot was from my Aunt Ella. It was my mother’s sister.

D: How long have you had it [recipe]?

B: Probably like forty, fifty years.

D: Awesome, so then, what are the ingredients in that recipe for Krumkake?

B: I need the recipe. Yeah because its eggs, butter, sugar, milk, flour, and vanilla.

D: When you first started to make the recipe, where would you receive the ingredients?

B: The grocery store.

D: The grocery place would be the same place you receive them now or would you go someplace different?

B: No, because its just got the very simple, you know there is nothing. It’s just the same thing my mother used on the farm.

D: Some of the ingredients your mother might have gotten from the farm?

B: Yes.

D: So my next question is what were the prices like for the ingredients back then versus now? If you could guess.

B: Oh my gosh. You know that’s something I would never think to even remember. It’s just something that I went to the grocery store and bought just like I did now. I probably couldn’t tell you the price of everything either.

D: Even now?

B: No, but I remember when eggs were like 59 cents a dozen. You know, that may be not… that’s not that long ago. Until they had this crisis now.

D: Alright, so the next question is, how long does it take to prepare or make the dish?

B: It doesn’t take long to mix. It getting the right temperature on the stove. Getting your iron the right temperature on the stove. That’s the trick.

D: Does the recipe you gave me specify the best way to cook it?

B: There is only one way to cook Krumkake.

D: At a specific temperature?

B: Yes, but that depends… you can’t really go by specific temperature because not every stove is the same. You have to just keep trying until you get the right temperature. That just involved putting a little bit of the mixture on the hot iron and if it comes out the way you want it, you got it right. That’s all there is to it.

D: Alright, was it traditionally served plain or with multekrem or other fillings?

B: We just ate it plain. It is just a roll.

D: Nowadays, when I looked up the recipe, I saw people put powdered sugar on it and stuff like that so if you served it nowadays would you still serve it traditionally plain? Or would you maybe put some fruit filling?

B: We never did that, in fact we put sugar on rosettes. We didn’t put on Krumkake.

D: Perfect, so this is a more broad question but, in your opinion in what ways does food help identify culture through the years?

B: Well I don’t think you’re going to find anybody, or very few people really making Krumkake the way they did years and years ago. Now you can buy an electric iron, its all there for you. Easy to make, yeah. You don’t have the time, your recipe is actually very easy. You can’t mess that up. It’s the heat. Yeah your stove.

D: Okay, so now were going to move more into the personal history of the recipe or you and the food itself. So over the years, who usually prepared or made the dish?

B: Me. Me.

D: Your mom make it a lot when you were a child?

B: My mom made it when I was, when I was at home. After I got married, I made it at home at my house.

D: What would you typically serve with the dish?

B: It was just usually put out like after…. Its more of like towards something you would eat…. I would eat it as a dessert. Because I like it. Now not everbody likes it because it really doesn’t have that much taste. But to me its part of Christmas.

D: Okay, so after pretty much any typical meal, just as a offering for dessert.

B: Right, and I’m sure that they can put, you know, if they wanted a filling, they could have filling handy. Cause if you put anything in it and set it for a while it gets soft and you want it crisp.

D: When, so you kind of answered this a little bit, but when would you typically serve the dish?

B: Christmas.

D: Sure, just on Christmas or a few weeks before and a few week after?

B: I only ate it for Christmas because my kids would eat it, they would eat it fast. It wouldn’t stick around, it was a Christmas dish.

D: Is it is pretty time consuming to prepare enough it for Christmas?

B: Well yeah it takes time, because first you bake it in your iron then you have to roll it on whatever you had. My mom didn’t have… now they have a metal V shaped thing to roll it on. My mother rolled it on the end of a broom. That was cut off, that’s… its just the way it was.

D: So you never had a traditional rolling pin? Or one of those cone pins?

B: No, a rolling pin…

D: Yeah, I mean not a rolling pin but you never had one of those actual little cones?

B: I never saw the actual… I’ve only seen only seen it on one of the [inaudible ending].

D: Has the recipe changed over time at all?

B: No, the same recipe that came out in the old cook books is the same on that I would still use.

D: So in your opinion, what makes the dish Norwegian?

B: Cause its called… who else is going to eat a dish called Krumkake. Huh? If that isn’t Norwegian, I couldn’t even tell you what it means.

D: Well I know kake is cake, but I don’t know what krum would mean.

B: Is it crumb?

D: Could be crumb cake. I don’t know.

B: I don’t know why it is called that.

D: Okay, so as you understand it, has the dish become more or less popular overtime?

B: I don’t know. I don’t make it now like I used to. I want my kids to make it.

D: You want them to make it? Maybe I’ll start making it.

B: We’ll try.

D: Do you go to a Norwegian church?

B: I did, yes.

D: Okay, did they… would you go to their Christmas dinners or their Christmas celebrations. Would they typically serve it there?

B: No, I always… that was something my that mother made. When we had company for Christmas you know. I’m sure they probably had it at the church stuff too. When I think of it, I think of it as something I eat at home.

D: For the particular cooking iron that you gave to my mother. Is there a particular meaning or story behind the pattern that is on it?

B: That I don’t know anything about.

D: And you said you received the cooking iron from your mother.

B: Correct yes.

D: Do you know who she received it from?

B: I have no idea.

D: So then what does the dish represent to you? What does Krumkake mean to you?

B: Christmas.

D: Christmas.

B: Yeah.

D: So this…

B: I would never make it in the summertime. Because it is too hot to stand over the to stove.

D: Okay, so what is your favorite memory of making the dish?

B: Well I probably think of when I did that was when I had little kids. And they always wanted to help and they would be there and they would eat the little ones I made as gestures. It’s just for Christmas.

D: That’s cute. Alright, so I was going to ask at the end, what happened to the rolling cone that was typically used to make the Krumkake shape, but if you never had one; what did you use to make the shape?

B: What did I use? This:

B: This is what my mother used and that’s what I used.

D: Is that the broomstick?

B: Yes. The end of the broom stick.

D: Really?

B: Yeah.

D: So how would you make it into a cone versus a cylinder?

B: The cones that I saw are what come out now and they’re metal. It’s just like a… it looks like an ice cream cone only its metal. Probably aluminum.

D: So would you be able to achieve the shape of an ice cream cone per say, with that?

B: No.

D: No, you went for more of a cylinder?

B:No, because it… when you wrap this around there it hardens, and you kind of leave it on there until it cools a little bit so that when you take it off it doesn’t go flat or doesn’t crumble. You have to be careful.

D: So yours, when you rolled them with this it would typically come out as a cylinder instead of a cone?

B: Yes.

D: Alright, well I think that is everything I have for you. Do you have anything else to say?

B: No, but I love Krumkake, and I would love to have you or your mother learn to make it.

D: Okay.

B: It would be fun!