state legislature tackles lutefisk issue

Lutefisk on yahoo news:

Getting the public to accept a process that strikes some as ghastly may be the biggest challenge. Psychopaths and dictators have used acid or lye to torture or erase their victims, and legislation to make alkaline hydrolysis available to the public in New York state was branded "Hannibal Lecter's bill" in a play on the sponsor's name — Sen. Kemp Hannon — and the movie character's sadism.

Alkaline hydrolysis is legal in Minnesota and in New Hampshire, where a Manchester funeral director is pushing to offer it. But he has yet to line up the necessary regulatory approvals, and some New Hampshire lawmakers want to repeal the little-noticed 2006 state law legalizing it.

That just blows my mind. Some funeral home just wants to serve lutefisk at a few wakes, and these congress men get in the way. It's surprising what they'll outlaw these days. As a scandinavian-american, I can't help but feel discriminated against.

On the other hand, this also makes me look at Lutefisk from a new perspective. I had no idea it was illegal in 48 out of 50 states. When I think back to how much of that stuff I ate while growing up... to know that if I'd just fled across the border (any border) it would have been illegal for my family to make me eat another bite. If only I'd known, I could have made it all stop.

Since they first walked the planet, humans have either buried or burned their dead. Now a new option is generating interest — dissolving bodies in lye and flushing the brownish, syrupy residue down the drain.

Flushing it down the drain is, hands down, the smartest thing anyone ever proposed to do with lutefisk. Or at least the smartest thing since that NASA plan to send all the Lutefisk into outer space.