They scraped the skin till it was clean, and hung it up outside to dry. When the skin was dried, they would cut it in to small slices. When they were having coffee, they would put slices of skin in the cup and the skin cleared the coffee. Of cause they would drink the coffee from the saucer, or at least my g-uncle would. When ever I smell good coffee, I think of them.
Ball is a chore to make and leaves quite a mess to clean up.
There is at least one manufacturer offering a dried potato dumpling mix that's not bad. It can be purchased in some Scandinavian food stores and upper Midwest grocery stores. The same company offers lefse and frozen potato dumplings. Squeeze out the potato water after grinding. The now departed, but excellent, Norwegian Troll Caf , and the more generically Scandinavian, Scandies, also located on Market Street in the Ballard section of Seattle.