April 15, 2010
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Keeper of the Gubbegott
Susie Johnson preserves Stanton’s Swedish culture
Stanton was forged with a steely Nordic edge. Swedish-born pastor Bengt Magnus Halland became a land agent for the Burlington Railroad in 1869 and invited “all God-fearing, non-gambling, non-drinking Swedes” to colonize Lutheran settlements in Essex, Red Oak, Nyman, Bethesda and Stanton. Swedish settlers swiftly answered that call and built majestic cathedrals like the 1870 Mamrelund Lutheran Church which still dominates Stanton’s skyline. As far as Swedish eyes could see from its hilltop steeple, that part of southwest Iowa had been consecrated by sacrifice and conviction that were eerily appropriate to those true believers “in grace alone, by faith alone.”
Swedish-Americans had been so vehemently opposed to slavery that they swung the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Relatively unpopulated Montgomery County, which included all Halland’s settlements except Essex, suffered more Civil War casualties than any other county in Iowa. That fighting Norse spirit lives today in Stanton. Few towns with fewer than 700 people still maintain their own high school. Its value accrued pride in each of the last two Novembers when the Vikings football team won its way to the state championship final rounds in Cedar Falls. On those game days, Stanton was virtually deserted – lots were drawn to see who would remain at the Volunteer Fire Department.
The softer side of Swedish heritage is also well preserved in Stanton, known as “Little White City” since the 1920’s because its clean and tidy look. On the last evening of April, men move from street corner to street corner singing the Swedish song Sköna Maj, to welcome “beautiful May.” Stanton is believed to be the only community in America that keeps that tradition and it’s done so for over 100 years. In June, Svenska Skolan (Swedish School) teaches children Swedish culture. A Midsommars Dag fest, a harvest time lutfisk dinner and December’s Santa Lucia Festival follow each year.
Coffee has become a cultural motif in Stanton. The St. Lucia queen carries a coffeepot while caroling and visiting homebound residents during the holidays. Stanton’s most famous daughter, actress Virginia Christine (nee Kraft), was best known for playing “Mrs. Olson” for 21 years in Folger’s Coffee commercials. She returned for Stanton’s centennial celebration in 1970. That inspired residents to convert the town’s 125 foot tall water tower into a giant Swedish coffeepot decorated with rosemailing and capable of holding 640,000 cups of coffee. With a conviction that Reverend Halland would have appreciated, that giant task was completed in just one year. Swedish media were fascinated and the tower became an international tourist attraction. In 2000, an even larger Swedish Coffee Cup water tower was built on the edge of town, capable of holding 2,400,000 cups of coffee.
“Love, at First Sight”
Susie’s Kök (“kitchen”) represents both the hard edge and the soft side of Stanton’s Swedish personality. Susan Johnson comes to work at 5 a.m. each day and opens her doors at 5:30. She comes much earlier when she bakes her famous rye bread. Signs alert visitors to the nature of her place:
“Will trade coffee for gossip.”
“Prices are subject to change according to customer’s attitude.”
“This is not Burger King, you take it my way or you don’t get the damn thing. “
“I don’t pee on your floor, don’t pee on mine.”
Sporting tattoos which resemble Swedish rosemailing, Johnson explained that she grew up in neighboring Villisca. As a teenager, she would baby sit in an infamous house known for early 20th century ax murders. That might unsettle a girl of lesser spirits.
“Some people think that’s creepy but, let me tell you, it’s just a house – one that has been fiddled with to seem creepy. They painted red spots on the wall and covered that with wall paper, so that it makes people think they are seeing blood stains,” Johnson related.
Hard times, typical to southwest Iowa in the late 20th century, led Johnson to Stanton.
“I always was a people person and I worked as a waitress in (Villisca’s) March Café, which later became the Circle J. When that place went out of business, I worked at a factory in Corning. When its jobs got shipped overseas, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was feeling pretty bad one night when Carolyn Gage ( publisher of the Villisca Review newspaper and a member of both the Villisca and Stanton Chambers of Commerce) asked me if I would be interested in opening a restaurant in Stanton.
“This place had been the Stanton Café, but it had been vacant for over two years. I took one look at it, and let me tell you, it was love at first sight. I cleaned it up, opened it up and I’ve been open ever since – except for four months in the middle of a really nasty divorce, when I needed a pay check instead of more bills. I ran this place single handed for years. I cooked, I waited tables, I bussed and washed dishes. I took reservations, too,” she added with a healthy laugh.
Susie’s offers extraordinary value. Meals cost $6.50 and that included pie and coffee or tea. Pie was served before dinner.
“Always before dinner,” explained waitress Kyla Clark. “You can have it after dinner in Des Moines.”
Susie’s pies draw customers from miles away, especially “Fruit of the Forest” pie. Its crust was made with rendered lard and “forest” fruits included apples, strawberries, black berries, rhubarb, raspberries, and boysenberries.
“It is not made the same way twice. I may even use gooseberries when I can find them,” Johnson admitted.
Susie’s pork tenderloins also defy convention. Johnson calls them “home style” meaning they are double breaded and grilled on a flat top stove, rather than cooked in oil or lard like most breaded foods. Their grain was longer and more tender than typical tenderized loins, and their pork flavor was stronger, probably from not being submerged in oil. Johnson served them on home made rye bread, a signature restaurant item – but not THE signature.
Susie’s Swedish pancakes have a national reputation, enhanced by kudos from Gourmet magazine. They are made with just four ingredients – eggs, flour, sugar and salt. Despite that seeming simplicity, Johnson went through dozens of recipes before finding one that produced perfectly laced edges in her kitchen. She serves them with lingonberries imported from Sweden. Johnson described that fruit as tasting like “tart cranberries” and showed off her cache with the pride a jeweler would reserve for her finest diamonds.
Susie’s cultivates customers two ways. First, Johnson brings personal touches to the place, like giving away free coffee and cinnamon rolls on one‘s birthday. Secondly, she keeps learning old Swedish recipes and including them on her special dinner menus, particularly on Wednesday nights. Johnson credits several Stanton ladies for teaching her Swedish dishes. Grace Schultz taught her to make ostakaka (curd cake with almonds and vanilla). Janice Peterson taught her the Swedish touch of using coffee and molasses in rye bread.
“Ham balls are the biggest deal here. I got my recipe from Phyllis Vessen. I usually prepare them on Sundays and use them till they sell out that week,” she said, adding that liquid smoke is an essential ingredient.
One “Swedish” dish might well be unique to Stanton. Johnson said she got her her gubbegott recipe from Ingrid Newman, who learned it from her mother Julie Newman, who said that she learned it from both her mother and her mother-in-law. That dish (a cold apple lasagna) has been beloved in Stanton for at least four generations, but it’s unmentioned in Swedish cookbooks and unknown in other Swedish communities around America and Canada.
Improv Kitchen Theater
Johnson describes her cooking style as improvisational.
“I learned by trial and error, mostly error. I am not an academy-trained chef. I worked with one though, while I was going through the divorce. What a contrast we were in that kitchen, at Firehouse in Red Oak. She was right out of culinary college and I was who I am. Neither one of us fit the philosophy of the place. I work on the run, a dash of this, as dash of that. I taste things to test them and then adjust to taste. But the restaurant insisted that everything be done exactly the same way – every single time. They were pretty rigid about recipes and all that. I discovered that I couldn’t work for someone else,” she confessed, laughing.
All Johnson’s written recipes have no instructions, just ingredients, and not necessarily all the ingredients. For instance, her “Swedish green beans” recipe omits green beans, just “3 strips bacon, 1 egg, 3 tablespoons vinegar, half a cup of water and half a cup of sugar.”
“Sundays are the only day of the week when I actually have a plan and follow it – at least as far as the menu goes,” she admitted.
Regulars have figured out Susie’s irregular style. They know that Saturdays are busy, at least when the football team isn’t playing in Cedar Falls, and “only hot beef and grill orders are taken.” They also know that her chicken is pan fried on Sundays, but it’s deep fat fried the rest of the week. They all keep coming back though, whether she’s making their favorite dish that day or not. Regular customer Norm Peterson put it simply.
“This restaurant means everything to this town. Without the restaurant, there is no town.”
Susie’s Swedish Pancakes
4 eggs
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
Quarter cup, plus one teaspoon sugarPlace in a blender and blend. Refrigerate. Grill on a flat top over medium high flame. When corners simulate lace, fold half the cake over the other half. Then fold half of that over the remaining quarter. Serve with fruit preserves, preferably lingonberries.
Julie Newman’s Gubbegott
Graham Crackers, crushed or broken but not finely so
Apple sauce
Cinnamon
Freshly whipped cream
Line pan with Graham Crackers. Alternate layers of applesauce and layers of whipped cream, any number, but with whipped cream on top. Chill well and serve cold.
