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A man enjoys a plate filled with lutefisk, Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and salad during the 2020 Annual Swedish Meatball and Norwegian Lutefisk Dinner at the First Lutheran Church in Havre.
Four lutefisk boiling vats created from scrap metal and heated by two deconstructed furnace burners steam during the 2020 Annual Swedish Meatball and Norwegian Lutefisk Dinner at the First Lutheran Church in Havre.
Saturday will see the return of Havre's annual Norwegian Lutefisk and Swedish Meatball Dinner from noon to 5 p.m. at the First Lutheran Church, after a year without due to COVID-19.
The event, now in its 88th year, is held by Havre's First Lutheran Church with assistance from Messiah Lutheran Church and has been a mainstay event in the community for decades, bringing people in the community together for a meal of Lutefisk, Swedish meatballs, boiled potatoes, lefsa, cranberry relish and coleslaw, with ice cream and sandbakkels.
Dinner Chair Jim Griggs said it's an all-you-can-eat event that he's glad to have back.
"Come out and enjoy a good meal and see your neighbors again," Griggs said.
He said while he's glad to have the event again and is hoping for the best, he is concerned about how COVID-19 will affect attendance.
He said the scale of the dinner is comparable to previous years, but he doesn't know if it will draw the same crowd as last time.
"We're shooting in the dark," he said. "We'll see what happens."
Griggs said they're making efforts to let people know that they do have delivery, call-in and pick-up service available said.
He said people typically come to the dinner from Malta, Chester or even farther.
"Everyone is excited. We even had a call from someone in Billings, they heard we were going to hold it and they're on their way for Saturday," he said.
He said the dinner in 2020 served about 440 people with about 300 pounds of lutefisk, significantly less than at it's peak in the '50s and '60s when they served between 1,200 and 1,400 dinners, but still an impressive figure he's hoping to match this year.
Griggs has been involved with the dinner in various capacities since 1976, and has been the chair for years. He said it takes a lot of people to make it happen and for the most part his role in recent years has been coordination.
He said 30 people were working on lefsa last Saturday and tonight they will be working on the sandbakkels.
Since he's been involved, the dinner has only been absent two years, once in the late 80s while the church was being renovated, and last year.
He said 2021 was a bad year for fish eaters not just because of the absence of the dinner, but because local markets like Gary & Leo's Fresh Foods couldn't get their hands on it due to suppliers being shut down.
He said fish is a traditional dinner for many families in the area around Christmas and it was sad to see it go.
The dinners will be $20 for adults and $8 for children under 14.
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