You betcha

It is one of my earliest memories. I'm sitting at my grandmother's dinner table. Before me is a plate of lutefisk, and the smell is making me gag.

It is a horrible odor. Combined, not even my older brother's feet, breath and armpits, which at different times I've unwillingly had to whiff when he could stand my annoying ways no more, smell worse than what is in front of me now.

The lutefisk is swimming in butter. I mean this literally. Its slimy texture and the melted butter my grandmother has poured on it send it sailing from one end of the plate to the other at the slightest disturbance. Lifting my fork from the table, I gently poke the piece of fish like someone might a dead rattlesnake or an old beehive.

It jiggles.

The son of a man who, if given the choice, probably would have picked fishing over fame, I have eaten boatloads – again, literally – of fish in my life. Never before has one jiggled. Aghast, I look at the others around the table. They are engaged in polite conversation. None is staring at their plate in disgust.

Slowly, I take stock of the situation. I am being asked to eat stinky fish Jell-O. I am, I conclude, in deep trouble.

Superman has kryptonite. I have cod soaked in lye and drowned in melted butter. So if it features a lutefisk-eating contest, I am doomed. But if it is rolls of lefse instead that I must devour or if I am asked to survive atop a glacier for 30 days and 30 nights or, better yet, if I'm pitted in a battle to decide whose stoicism is most stout, I have a good shot at being the next champ of "Alt for Norge."

"Alt for Norge" – All for Norway in English – is a Norwegian reality TV show in which 10 Americans of Nordic heritage travel to Norway to compete in games where they discover their Norwegian roots while viewers discover how far they will go to win 50 grand. The contests are more silly than serious. In the show's debut season a year ago, contestants had to herd cows, row a Viking boat and sing the Norwegian national anthem to the accompaniment of an elementary school band.

They also had to eat a hamburger in two bites, kiss contestants of the same sex and pee on a fence while drinking a beer, which, apparently, is what one does in Norway upon graduating from high school as part of a tradition called russefeiring, where, apparently, for 17 days in May high school graduates go completely bonkers.

"Alt for Norge" is a big hit. Thousands tuned in each week to watch the Americans face off, but it appears what was just as appealing to most Norwegians were the moments when the contestants came face to face with their pasts – like the day one saw the village church where her great-grandmother was baptized – or when they embraced Norwegian culture – like the night they dined on the heads of sheep or the morning some bravely jumped into a bone-chilling fjord … and promptly jumped out.

Under the right circumstances, I could be a shoo-in to win this show. I lived in North Dakota for almost a decade. If that isn't like being marooned on a glacier, I don't know what is. I also am a lefse connoisseur. I know precisely how much butter and sugar and cinnamon to put on it. Granted, I've never actually made lefse, but no one I know makes it better than Sharon Helgeson. My plan is to spend the weeks leading up to "Alt for Norge" training under the 71-year-old South Dakotan in her Langford kitchen – kind of like a Rocky Balboa thing, but instead of running through the hard streets of Philadelphia in the dark and slugging raw sides of beef in a gritty meat locker, I'll be wearing an apron and rolling dough.

The way I figure it, given these advantages, I'm already a good bet to be the last one standing at the end of the next "Alt for Norge." But what will definitely seal the deal is if the show puts contestants to the true Nordic test: a challenge to see whose stoicism runs the deepest.

Norwegians are known for their stoic nature. Gather a group together, and you're liable to witness more emotion from a lamppost. A laundry basket is less reserved. Told they won the lottery or they need a root canal, Norwegians respond the same: "You betcha." Their blood doesn't boil. It congeals.

I'm not quite as imperturbable as that. I don't regard asking another person for the time to be a public display of affection – like some Norwegians do. On the other hand, I am considering this for my epitaph: The less said the better. In a contest to goad "Alt for Norge" competitors into expressing their feelings, I like my chances.

The search for the next 10 "Alt for Norge" contestants has begun. The deadline to submit an application to the Chicago casting company running the search – including a short video explaining what makes you "Alt for Norge" material – is Jan. 10. To be considered, you must be at least a smidgen Norwegian, be between the ages of 18 and 60 and have never been to Norway.

I'm definitely all those. The only place I've ever been is Canada, and while I'm not 100 percent Norwegian, I'm enough that I mutter "uff da" when the snowplow leaves a 3-foot drift at the end of my driveway. Plus, not one of the 10 contestants in the first season of "Alt for Norge" was from South Dakota. (Four were from Minnesota.)

I'd say I'm an obvious choice, and once chosen, there is but a single thing that can keep me from victory.

It will stink if that thing happens.

In more ways than one.