Crayfish Party
Events
This year the Crayfish party was held on August 26, 2016 in collaboration with the American Swedish Historical Museum. We welcomed members and non-members to join us for a traditional Crayfish party and it turned out to be a fantastic summer evening. The tradition of Crayfish party dates back to 1931, when it was mentioned for the first time by the Swedish newspaper“ Dagens nyheter”. Many Swedes celebrate this event in the end of the summer. Why it is celebrated this specific time is because it was a law till 1994 that you were not allowed to start fishing crayfishes until the first Wednesday of August.
The venue at the American Swedish Historical Museum was outside and beautiful decorated with big paper lanterns and festive colored light strings. The guests wore hats, bibs and had paper napkins and paper plates all with the crayfish motif. The evening started with some mingling, lovely finger food and some aquavit tasting from Rowhouse Spirits. The guests were then able to enjoy a delicious buffet of Swedish boiled cold crayfishes, Västerbotten cheese pie, meatballs, dill potatoes, schnapps and more.
During the dinner everyone raised their glasses of aquavit and sang traditional Swedish drinking sons such as Helan Går. For dessert it was a traditional delightful strawberry cake. The dinner was followed be a raffle drawing and an auction with prices donated by a variety of sponsors.
It was a lovely evening spent in the party tent overlooking the lush greenery of Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park. The guests really enjoyed it and got a beautiful end of the summer.
Author: Maria Didner
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