Lutefisk and Yams
Dr. Seuss meets Ole and Lena jokes:
I would not eat them on a raid,
I would not eat them with a maid,
I would not eat them on a trip,
I would not eat them on my ship.
I do not like lutefisk and yams.
I do not like them, Sven I am.
Surely there must be a more authentic Scandinavian foodstuff that rhymes with "am"? I can't imagine that the Vikings would have had much access to yams, as most varieties don't do well in the cold. Dioscorea batatas is hardy to USDA Zone 5, though, and southern Sweden is Zone 7, which strikes me as utterly ridiculous but I guess a bit of Viking yam-cultivation would not have been entirely out of the climatological question. History is another matter; decent references on the history of yams are not forthcoming, but check out the completely unrelated sweet potato for kicks.
Ham!
Oh, selvflgelig! I suspect they were only trying to differentiate themselves from the original text, but the price in authenticity is just not worth it.
Although hardly reliable as a source of information on antroplogical and/or culinary matters:
http://www.detritus.org/spam/skit.html
Very true! And the Monty Python reference is obvious in retrospect…