2005 Lutefisk Chef of The Year
Darrel Benson has been the cooking lutefisk for the annual Zion Lutheran Church (Grand Rapids, MN) Lutefisk dinners for over 40 year. This year’s dinner on October 27 attracted some 400 Lutefisk Lovers. Of course, some come for the lefse and Darrel and his wife, Marion, have been regulars at the lefse bake for at least that many years. Darrel is equally proficient at cooking lutefisk and rolling and baking lefse.

The quantity of lutefisk Darrel has cooked in his lifetime is not measured in pounds but in tons. 

Darrel is serious about lutefisk. He takes an interest in where the fish is procured and is always searching for ways to improve the quality of the end-product. He attends other lutefisk dinners on the Iron Range and compares notes with other cooks: All because he wants the lutefisk at the Zion dinner to be the best!

This year’s lutefisk dinner presented a special challenge for Darrel. In mid-summer he was scheduled for knee replacement surgery and prior to it developed an infection that caused the surgeon to postpone the operation until the infection was eliminated. Come time for the lutefisk dinner and Darrel was on antibiotics and crutches. Did it take him away for his lutefisk chef duties? Not on your life. He was back in the kitchen, hobbling around, fussing over the fish, and devoted to satisfying all the lutefisk lovers who showed up.

You can’t keep a good lutefisk chef down. [Note: He had successful surgery on November 18, and is in the process of full recovery.]

It’s hard to imagine anyone who has done what Darrel Benson has done to insure that folks who show up at the Zion dinner are served that North Sea cod delicacy at its very finest. Ufda but it is so good!

He is a very worthy candidate for Lutefisk Chef of the Year honors…and we proudly present his name into nomination.

Submitted by:

Don Osell

Cohasset, MN