I Love Juustalepia

I’m lost in my Swedish heritage!!!  Wandering around asking the ever so often HUH? HOO what? Never heard or seen such a thing!

Shamefully I think we have to be kept a secret!!  I grew up asking a lot of questions or interrupting good conversations to only be told , I’ll tell you when you  grow up!
As a genealogist  this barricade of shame has kept me in the dark.  It only eludes to deep dark family secrets. When us story tellers come quizzing  don’t tilt your radar and think I know your secrets!!   Only if you tell me!!  Oh and that blushing cheek is a dead give away!  Our heritage in Swedish ways are lost in acculturation.  The immigrant parents didn’t adjust always and their children being brought up in the new world learned quickly and sometimes left their swedish heritage for American ways.  As we say now, Live in America speak, act and abide as an American.  But that’s not to say you can’t be who you are!
I see it in my own state, Minnesota!!  We have festivals for all kinds of nations and we celebrate in these festivals!!  We love our heritage!!  We are proud of our home countries but you can’t make America anything other then what it is.  Oh beautiful for spacious skies and amber waves of grain!!  For purple mountains majesty above the fruited plains!!  AMERICA, AMERICA, God shed his grace on thee! 
OOps! The Juustalepia!  Pronounced HOO-stah-lee-pah!!!  The best kept or forgotten secret in Swedish central Minnesota!!  It's bread cheese or baked cheese!  I bought a slab of it out of curiosity!  Never seen or heard of such cheese!  I read you slice off a hunk and drop it in your
coffee!  You put cloudberry jam on it or maple syrup!  This slab of yummy cheese has literally piqued my desire to know how come I know so little of the heritage of my family?   C’mon my swedish ancestors and children of those immigrants!  Open up the swedish flood gates and share all that you know and it’s beginning with Juustalepia for me this Memorial Weekend!  I’m contacting everyone of my relatives in hot pursuit of best kept secrets or in other words, forgotten heritage!!  Call me, write me, invite me, scan me photos, share your recipes, Give me a story to write about.
For Faith, Home and Heritage our story is made.