In my family, Norwegian on one side, Icelandic on the other, holidays didn’t begin with the calendar; they began with potatoes, butter, and a hot grill. We made lefse before Thanksgiving, again at Christmas, and if we managed true restraint, we’d tuck a few rounds into the freezer for Easter. Mischief came baked-in. Someone always snatched a round hot off the griddle; flour drifted like snow; and debates broke out about rolling pressure, sticky cloth, and the exact second to flip.
Eventually my mom passed the torch with a lefse grill kit, a long wooden turning stick, and “masterclass” lessons: how the dough should feel cool from the fridge, how a round looks when it’s thin enough to show light, and just how to get the perfect brown grill spots and no ruffled edges. My recipe card is covered with pencil notes and arrows, proof that with lefse, the little things make the difference.
Torchbearers & Time-Savers
Tradition survives because we tend it at home and because someone chooses to keep it alive when others can’t. That’s where Freddy’s Lefse comes in. For those of us living far from home, trying to explain lefse to new friends (Texans usually nod when we say, “think tortilla, only potatoes, and thinner”), Freddy’s keeps a taste of home within reach, by mail or at the grocery store and ready for butter and sugar.
Freddy Cox and Lorraine Kuhn married in 1943 and, three years later, started a lefse bakery in their Fargo basement. Demand moved the operation to a small building behind their house and, by 2000, into a West Fargo facility on Main Avenue, a testament to how a humble flatbread builds a mighty following when it’s made with care. Eventually, their son Terry modernized production with a proprietary process that helped their small team turn out more than 7,000 rounds a day. When the family hung up their sticks in 2020, longtime fans Bryan and Katie Nermoe stepped in to keep what they considered a Fargo crown jewel glowing. They didn’t change the recipe or the handwork; instead, they focused on reach. In 2024, Freddy’s marked a milestone: more than one million rounds in a single year, affirming its status as the oldest and largest lefse bakery still operating in the United States!
Practical, Beloved, and Paper-Thin
Lefse began as practicality, turning grain and later potatoes into a storable, flexible flatbread for long winters, and evolved into something beloved and near-poetic. In North Dakota and across the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest, it shows up at church dinners, fall bazaars, and holiday tables. Ask ten North Dakotans how they eat it, and you’ll get eleven answers, because flavor is only half the story; memory is the rest. “It tastes just like what my grandma made,” Freddy’s hears again and again. It’s amazing how taste can unlock memories. It explains why people ship lefse as gifts, why they save a round for someone who couldn’t make it home, why a package might wait in the freezer like a time capsule.
Try making it yourself and you see why the craft matters. This dough is likely to misbehave. True connoisseurs measure thinness the way watchmakers calibrate time with a combination of art and precision. Freddy’s hand-rolls each round twice for that signature whisper of thickness. When fans say Freddy’s lefse is the thinnest you can buy, it’s not marketing, but the standard by which generations of families judge the real thing.
Keeping the Flame, Widening the Circle
The Nermoes’ stewardship is centered around lineage and logistics. Both come from Norwegian families, Bryan’s great-grandfather homesteaded in Upham, North Dakota, while relatives who stayed in Norway still run the Nermo Hotel near Lillehammer; Katie’s family emigrated to rural Renwick, Iowa, where they sharecropped. When Bryan’s grandmother died, no one in the family could make lefse quite like hers, so Freddy’s became the bridge that carried the tradition forward. It’s the same bridge many of us need in the busy years when good intentions outpace hours and baking time.
Since taking the reins, the Nermoes have expanded online sales and social presence and now ship year-round to all fifty states, bringing lefse to tables without anyone having to wrestle a rolling pin at midnight. They’ve also added Nordic Kitchen to their offerings, a line of hand-mixed Scandinavian baking mixes that includes Danish Shortbread, Scandinavian Golden Cake and Norwegian Pancakes for a taste of Scandinavia.
Sugar & Spice and All That’s Nice
Every lefse family has opinions. In our house, butter and sugar are the default. Freddy’s fans echo that. Katie tells me that cream cheese with jam, peanut butter with bananas, and the inevitable Nutella all have their place on the list of leading lefse toppings, as well. She also reminds us not to forget the savory options and highlights butter with garlic and rosemary as “divine”. Lefse also understudies well for a bun with leftover sandwich meat and it’s game-changing for breakfast wraps.
What I admire about Freddy’s is the way they honor both halves of tradition: the half you guard at home and the half the community holds for you. Some years you’ll have the time and kitchen space to sift, mash, chill, roll, and flip. Other years you’ll be grateful a West Fargo crew is doing it while you shop and wrap presents. It’s important for us to remember that tradition isn’t a test you pass; it’s a table you set. Whether your rounds are home-rolled or store-bought, what matters is the pause they create for friends and family to gather and share.
North Dakota’s food culture is a living kitchen holding archives of practices and recipes worthy of a finely curated museum. When a local bakery that began in a basement can still hand-roll paper-thin rounds eight decades later and ship them across the U.S., that’s more than nostalgia that they’re feeding. Freddys longevity is proof that our local foods, when cherished, can travel and thrive without losing their soul. It’s proof that a small business can scale up without selling out. It’s proof that the distance between “how Grandma did it” and “how we do it now” doesn’t have to be a chasm.
I’ll keep my grill and stick close, and my recipe card will keep collecting smudges and scribbles. But I’m grateful for the torchbearers, the Freddys of the world, who keep the flame steady when life or geography gets in the way. The point of lefse was never perfection; it was presence: rolling, talking, tasting. The quiet choreography of feeding each other something familiar when the light outside gets thin.
If you’re new to lefse, start simple: warm a round, spread softened butter to the edges, dust with sugar, roll it snug, then take a bite. If it tastes like home, even if home is a place you’ve only imagined, you’ll understand what we’ve been trying to explain. And if the holidays are already making you feel rushed, rest easy: a small miracle in West Fargo is still turning out the thinnest, most memory-rich rounds you can buy, ready to land on your table wherever you are this winter.
Editor’s note: Freddy’s Lefse ships weekly to all 50 states year-round; their Nordic Kitchen mixes make an easy companion for holiday breakfasts. freddyslefse.com
