Minnesota Church Ends 70-Year Tradition of Lutefisk Dinner

FOREST LAKE (AP)-- A 70-year tradition of serving a lutefisk dinner has ended at a Minnesota church with an obituary penned by the pastor.

Faith Lutheran Church in Forest Lake, Minnesota, would serve a Scandinavian dinner featuring the pungent, jellylike fish the first Tuesday in December.

But the Rev. John Klawiter wrote an obituary for the annual dinner in the community newspaper last month.

Klawiter wanted the obit to read as a tribute to the seven decades the church in east-central Minnesota has served hundreds of pounds of lutefisk at the annual dinner, dubbed "Holy Tuesday."

The dinner would require about 190 volunteers. Planners had to find ways to fill gaps left by volunteers who had died or grown too frail.