The Hemingway Cookbook
Read The Hemingway Cookbook Online
Authors: Craig Boreth
In Praise of
The Hemingway Cookbook
“A wonderful culinary biography of one of America’s premiere writers.… Cooks, cookbook collectors, and of course, fans of Hemingway will find much to savor in this wonderful volume.”
—JENNIFER A. WHEELER
Executive Director, The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park
“For someone who reads cookbooks like novels, what a delight to find both in one publication. What a pleasure to romp with Hemingway as he eats and drinks his way through life. Liberally sprinkled with appropriate quotations, citations, and biographical data along with detailed recipes and menus, this book will certainly find a place in the kitchen and on the bookshelf of gourmets, gourmands, and the literati.”
—HOWARD B. CARRON, PH.D.
editor-in-chief,
Cigar Lovers Magazine
“Papa had some pungent comments about wine then that still ring true today.”
—HARVEY STEIMAN
editor at large,
Wine Spectator
“Authentic recipes from Hemingway’s favorite places bring to life an aspect of his life and writings long overlooked. Food was obviously very dear to Hemingway’s heart and an integral part of his expansive love of life. ¡Olés! for
The Hemingway Cookbook”
—PENELOPE CASAS
author,
Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain
The Hemingway Cookbook
An early-morning writing session while on safari
.
Contents
Introduction
Dining with Hemingway
WILD GASTRONOMIC ADVENTURES
1
The Early Years
A TASTE FOR LIFE
4
Spain
THE FIESTA CONCEPT OF LIFE
5
Key West and Cuba
SAILING THE STREAM
6
East Africa and Idaho
A HUNTER’S CULINARY SKETCHES
Epilogue
An After-Dinner Treat
THE FABLE OF THE GOOD LION
“I have discovered that there is romance in food
when romance has disappeared from everywhere else.
And as long as my digestion holds out I will follow romance.”
—ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Introduction
DINING WITH HEMINGWAY
Wild Gastronomic Adventures
“Ernest had a talent for making people feel that any pretension toward an appetite of life must be backed up with a healthy appetite for food.”
—Peter Griffin,
Less than a Treason
Hemingway writing as a young boy
.
Have you ever encountered a storyteller who could engage your imagi-nation as if it were his or her own, someone who can describe a person or place and you feel that you hold in your imagination a nearly complete and genuine experience of that person or place? Then, if you are fortunate enough to encounter that person or visit that place, they are exactly as you expected them to be? For me, Ernest Hemingway is one of those storytellers. I find myself drawn in, participating wholly in the creation of the intricate, near-reality he creates. That is the primary reason why I enjoy reading his writing, and that is why I am privileged enough to have you read mine.
Ernest Hemingway was in many ways an explorer. He lived in several different countries and traveled far from home for months at a time. He also traveled deep inside his own imagination and the minds of his characters, uncovering dark vestiges of torn and hardened individuals. He had an insatiable appetite for new and novel geographies, experiences, and people, attending to each detail with the dexterity and acumen of a natural historian. It is no surprise, then, that so many have followed him in search of that same newness, that same disconcerting, energizing imbalance that must be overcome in a new place. When I follow Hemingway, I am continually amazed at his great talent for taking me away to the landscape that he paints on the page. When I visit the settings, it feels exactly as I imagined when reading his work. It is a wonderful experience, and it makes reading Hemingway that much more of a personal adventure.
Ernest Hemingway was also a tremendous eater and drinker. For better and worse, he indulged his appetites to the fullest. His books are filled with episodes about food and drink, sometimes spectacular, other times intriguing in their mundane presentation. Regardless,
The Hemingway Cookbook
is a product of my belief that the same gut-warming, mind-racing sensation enjoyed by the follower of Hemingway’s journeys may be evoked by the preparation and enjoyment of his food and drinks.
The sounds of the words themselves—Aguacates, Purée de Marron, Chambéry Cassis, or Amontillado—linger beyond the turn of the pages. The textures, tastes, and smells remain on the palate long after the dust jacket earns its keep. This was the foundation of Hemingway’s art: to not only provide for his readers a description of the emotion evoked but to communicate the source of that emotion, creating for the reader that very same sensation. He crafted a fiction that stalked us and struck more quickly and fiercely than reality ever could. And there, sustaining, defining, and redefining the characters
that we sense so profoundly, are the details of their eating and drinking endeavors.
Hemingway uses native foods and drinks to convey his characters’ insider status. Participating in the local cuisine with the knowledge of the native, Hemingway’s characters feel at home, and so do we, the readers. Amid their epic struggles with death and love they find treasure and foundation in the cuisine of the lands in which they are adrift. Participation in the life of the fiction and, thus, in the life of the writer himself may explain why Ernest Hemingway has inspired every generation since his own to embark in pursuit of that elusive sense of what has been called “more-being”: to attain a sort of world-citizenry from the Plaza de Toros to the Parisian café to the Gulf Stream.
In our own enduring quest to gain some membership in his fiction and his legend, the preparation and consumption of the food and drink included here in
The Hemingway Cookbook
evoke the solitude of fishing his trout streams, the drama of watching his bullfights, and the camaraderie of hunting his game. It is as individual an adventure as the fiction itself.
There is no easy way to arrange a book about a man as prolific and well traveled as Ernest Hemingway. This book is laid out roughly chronologically, focusing on the central country or region of each time period. Within each chapter, focus is placed on the novels and short stories that take place in that region or were written in that time period. I have tried to include some pertinent biographical information, particularly if the anecdotes pertain directly to the recipes included. For the complete picture of Hemingway’s life, read Carlos Baker’s seminal work,
Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story
, or any volume of Michael Reynolds’s brilliant series of Hemingway biographies.
I have tried to provide a taste of the food and drink that were most important in Hemingway’s life and the life of his fiction. It would be virtually impossible to include every recipe. (For a fascinating analysis of the role of food and drink in Hemingway’s fiction, as well as a complete index to the references to food and drink therein, read Samuel J. Rogal’s
For Whom the Dinner Bell Tolls
, 1997.) Therefore, I have chosen recipes that accompany important moments in Hemingway’s life and art.
I have tried to stay true to the original recipes of the time. Thus, many of you may find yourself buying lard for the first time in many years, or frying in a lot of butter, or mixing some serious drinks. If you know the old adage “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” you may want to keep it in mind as you prepare some of these Hemingway feasts.