Is there a secret to making good Scandinavian food?

That’s easy: lots of butter.

Oh, and cream, too.

Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. It helps to have a few wonderful recipes on hand, and it certainly doesn’t hurt if you come from sturdy Swedish or Norwegian stock.

“It’s tradition âÂÂ:quot; you just grew up with it. Your mother and your grandmother did it,” Lenoir Ekdahl says of the simple, hearty fare that traces its roots back primarily to Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

It’s a style of cooking built upon the tastes of smoked salmon, herring, dill, potatoes, caraway cheese, rye bread, lingonberries and lefse (a traditional flatbread made of potatoes and flour).

Not to forget the notorious lutefisk âÂÂ:quot; dried cod soaked in lye.

Really.

“I’ve gotten to like it,” Ekdahl says of the love-it-or-hate-it Norwegian delicacy. “As a kid, I would say, âÂÂ’No!’ But I like it now.”

Lutefisk isn’t Ekdahl’s favorite Scandinavian food. That honor would be reserved for potato sausage, which contains beef, pork and potatoes stuffed into little casings.

“I also like the Osta Kaka (Swedish cheesecake). It’s very mild, and it’s got lots of cream in it,” she says.

âÂÂ’Swedish icon’

All of the ethnic dishes that Ekdahl loves âÂÂ:quot; and more âÂÂ:quot; will be offered at the Scandinavian Smorgasbord, Bake and Craft Sale on Saturday at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1245 N.H.

Ekdahl is one of dozens of volunteers who have been working since January to pull off the event, which is a fund-raiser sponsored by the congregation’s branch of Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Ekdahl is an essential part of the effort, helping prepare the dishes and delights that await smorgasbord diners this year.

Those at Trinity Lutheran who know of Ekdahl’s cooking and her heritage call her a “Swedish icon.”

“She’s the kingpin,” says volunteer Janice Conrad, a Trinity Lutheran member since 1965.

“She knows how to get the job done,” adds Aliene Bieber, another volunteer and church member for 23 years.

If her name sounds familiar, it’s probably because Ekdahl Dining Commons at Kansas University âÂÂ:quot; known to most students as “Mrs. E’s” âÂÂ:quot; is named for her.

She worked for KU Dining Services for 34 years, retiring in 1989 as associate director of the Student Housing Administration.

Ekdahl has belonged to Trinity Lutheran since 1955.

Quite a meal

Smorgasbord, a Swedish word, means a buffet made up of a variety of dishes.

That’s certainly a good description of the spread that will be put out for the serve-yourself meal Saturday at Trinity Lutheran.

The official menu features 19 items, including: Swedish meat balls, potato sausage, herring in wine sauce, smoked salmon, lutefisk, cheeses, cooked potatoes with dill, Swedish brown beans, homemade Swedish rye bread, Norwegian crackers and a variety of cold, marinated vegetable salads.

A dessert table will offer creamy Osta Kaka with lingonberries, rice pudding with kram (thickened grape juice), Swedish tea ring, many kinds of cookies and a cold, fruit soup.

“If we can get it all together, it’s quite a meal,” Ekdahl says, laughing.

Nearly all of the food in the smorgasbord is homemade by Trinity Lutheran members. (The potato sausage is from Lindsborg.) The same goes for all of the items in the bake sale, including 52 one-pound packages of dried, frozen egg noodles that some of the church women prepared recently.

Volunteers like Ekdahl, Conrad and Bieber are among many church members who have worked together to prepare Scandinavian Smorgasbords, on and off, since about 1985 at Trinity Lutheran. It’s become something of an Advent tradition.

“A group of us of Scandinavian descent decided we should have something for the congregation, a Swedish meal,” Ekdahl recalls.

“It’s an outreach event and also a fund-raiser. We don’t do the smorgasbord every year, but we’ve done it the last two years. We’ve had several German dinners (at the church) also,” Conrad adds.

Lutefisk has always played a role in the Scandinavian Smorgasbord, as it will this year. But these days, it comes frozen, with much of the tedious prep work already done.

It wasn’t always so easy.

“It starts out as dried cod. You’d take a saw to cut it up and fit it in the crock. Then you’d soak it in ashes and lye, and you’d change the water every day, from Thanksgiving up to Christmas,” Ekdahl remembers.

“I’ll tell you, it smelled horrible. It tasted kind of like smelt. They used it on mashed potatoes, the old-time Swedes.”