Summer Sauna Party

 

 Sól, © 2024, Lisa Steinmann 

People who live in cold places love warmth–saunas, log fires and sunshine. The Nordics have a long history of sun worship. Consider the sun disc, a common motif in their art and an ancient symbol that evokes deities such as Sól, Norse goddess of the sun who travels through the sky in a horse drawn chariot, marking the days and seasons. At the moment, she is bringing forth intense greenery, lots of rain and midsummer celebrations of summer’s most light-filled days. For us, it’s a good time for a backyard sauna party. Here are some of our tips and recipes for a happy get-together. 

A found object, an old wheel (perhaps from a broken hoe) hangs on the back of Bad Sauna. It is my minimalist reference to a sun disc. 

Windfall from the cottonwood by our house provided half a dozen vihtas. 

To prepare for a midsummer party we start early in the day by sprucing up the sauna with a rinse, a scrub and an airing-out. We make sure that it is stocked with clean towels and that the buckets are full of fresh water, the cold plunge tub, too. Fresh vihtas are made and set to soaking. The grass is mowed, the campfire stove filled with hardwood and any surface that needs a clean sweep is swept. We start heating the sauna at least an hour before guests arrive. I put a drop of Forester John BWCA essential oil in the ladle bucket to scent the sauna with a whiff of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

A long drink in a short glass

A serious session in the sauna can cause people to lose up to a pint of sweat so it’s important to stay hydrated. We make sure that we have plenty of drinking water on hand for guests before, during and after taking a sauna. We also like to offer a refreshing and hydrating iced tea from the Southwest called Agua de Jamaica. This ruby red tea is not only delicious but it has some bonus health benefits. We cold-brew up a jug of hibiscus blossom tea with lemons and limes, add cinnamon sticks, slices of fresh ginger and sweeten it lightly with agave syrup. 

For after-sauna drinks, a cold beer hits the spot for many people. There is also a cocktail in a can available locally now called The Finnish Long Drink (lonkero). It is easy to mix up a lonkero yourself; it’s basically gin and grapefruit juice served in a tall glass. A good recipe starts with your favorite gin. Vikre Distillery in Duluth offers a selection that ranges from the typical juniper-based liquor to spruce and cedar. Mix a couple ounces of gin with a couple ounces of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, top it off with some grapefruit soda (Squirt or Fresca come to mind) or plain soda water. Stir it all up in a tall glass of ice and finish it with a wedge of lemon. 

The food menu for an after-sauna picnic usually includes sausage. Historically, the Finnish sauna was a multi-purpose building on the farm. In addition to being a bathhouse, it was also used for smoking meat. In its oldest version, known as savusauna (smoke sauna), the bathhouse was heated with a wood fire without a chimney to vent it. The building would fill with smoke that would be released through doors and windows before folks entered to bathe. You can see how cured meats and the sauna go together.

While few people use their sauna for smoking meat nowadays, cooking up sausage in the sauna is still a thing–there is even a soapstone tube made for placing meats directly on the sauna stove rocks. The next time you are in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, look for Vollwerth’s sauna makkara, a ring sausage (described as beef and pork bologna) especially made for sauna snacking. Some people heat it up by hanging it near the stove in the sauna. For a backyard party, I prefer to cook sausages and hot dogs over the campfire and serve them on a flat potato pancake called lefse. 

Wild rice brats, roasted over the fire and served Norwegian style on lefse 

Potatoes go well with a hot dog. I have nothing against potato chips–love ’em–but I also love midsummer’s baby red potatoes, boiled and tossed with butter and dill. Have them on the side or smash them up a bit and roll them up with your hotdog cradled in lefse. Slip in a slice of cheese and be adventurous with condiments. In addition to ketchup and mustard, try some horseradish sauce, a dab of sweet tart lingonberry jam and of course, a slice of pickle.

A tradition we carry on is baking a midsummer strawberry and cream cake, jordgubbstårta in Swedish. Growing up, I remember the whirring noise as my grandmother hand-cranked the wheel of her egg beater. Her angel food cakes reached impressive airy heights; more beating would follow for the cream, all to be served with sliced strawberries. I am always trying new versions of this old favorite. This sponge-based strawberry cake recipe demonstrates the kinship between Nordic and Eastern European cuisine. It is from Ukrainian-American cook Natasha Kravchuk (her website is Natasha’s Kitchen). Both regions of Europe have short growing seasons and rely on rustic creativity to celebrate summer’s brief bounty.

Prialkas carved with sun discs on the left. (Museum of Russian Art)

A final word on summer weather where I live. Some days it gets heat-wave hot and you just need to find ways to stay cool. Luckily, there are some perfect get-aways in the Twin Cities including over 50 museums. I was happy to encounter sun discs during a recent visit to The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis where we stopped by to see the exhibit: Peasant Women of the Russian North: Heritage of a Culture Lost. Much of the collection was devoted to textiles and the old farming traditions of growing and processing flax by hand to weave linen cloth which was then finely embroidered. There was a fascinating collection of 19th and 20th century prialkas, (distaffs in English), tools that look like breadboards with a crown and were used by women to spin thread. Each one beautifully carved and painted with farm animals, flowers and symbols that represented prayers and good luck charms, sunshine for dark times.

Glad Midsommar!