This article was submitted by Skjold member Marilyn Halvorsen and was translated by long-time Hallingslag member Edna Rude, who lives near Gary, Minnesota.

The original article also included 3 recipes: Lutefisk - Bergen Style (oven baked), Stewed Peas, and Bacon Bits.  The bacon bit recipe mentioned adding pork fat or lamb fat into the bacon fat and bacon bits and then pouring this fat over the lutefisk.  It also mentioned that not everyone wants the bacon fat on their lutefisk.

The article follows as originally printed with no alterations or editing.
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On the front page of Hallingdølen for this date we see a photo of Chef Gunnar Egil Haugen, from Torpo in Hallingdal, preparing lutefisk for a large restaurant in Bergen.
A headline tells us, "He serves 12 tons of lutefisk!" Further, "People - make pilgrimage to eat lutefisk at Bryggeloftet og Stuene restaurant."
They pack into the historic old building, having made reservations a year in advance. One customer has said it this way: "We have become so lazy we have our lutefisk served to us at a restaurant that knows how."
Bergen was long ago (c.a. 1100s) the center for trade in dried fish and salted fish. The fishermen in north Norway brought their catch here in the earliest times. But it was the Swedish King Gustaf who first wrote in a letter about lye-soaked fish in 1540. And the Swedish Archbishop wrote in 1555 about fish lying for two days in strong lye, then one day in fresh water before it was fit to eat, "then when it is cooked and salty butter added, people serve it at the prince's table as a treasured and delicious course."
According to lutefisk friends at Hvaler in Østfold (in southeast Norway), the sailing ship Captain Aalf Cornelius Ingesson learned the lye process from a Portuguese steward in the 1500s. Not until the late 1700s did Norse literature mention lutefisk. At that time it was east Norway where the fish was used.
At any rate, the tradition in this old building in Bergen is an old one. Here the lutefisk season starts in September and lasts until Easter, as Norwegian tradition would have it. The fish, yes, of course it is dried cod directly from Lofoten.
A smiling chef steps out from behind ancient log walls to tell about his workplace and the lutefisk. Gunnar Egil Haugen is from Torpo in Hallingdal and speaks "Bergenese". He has lived in Bergen over ten years, but has not forgotten the Hailing dialect. He prepares about 12 tons of lutefisk per year and has good help in the kitchen. Haugen studied cooking in ÅI, then apprenticed at Pers Hotel in Gol, and spent 10 years at Østenfor Hotel in Nesbyen prior to his move to Bergen.  First, he was