The Hemingway Cookbook (22 page)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Pinch of dried fennel

1 bay leaf

1 sprig thyme

Freshly ground black pepper

Small pinch of saffron threads

4-5 pounds offish (such as whiting, bass, red snapper, haddock, cod, or any other firm-fleshed fish), cut into medium-size pieces

1 cup dry white wine

Several cups of boiling water

1 pound mussels (see preparation tips in preceding recipe)

1 pound large shrimp or prawns, sliced in half lengthwise

Parsley for garnish

Several thick slices of bread

In a soup kettle or large heatproof casserole, saute the garlic and onion in the olive oil until lightly browned. Add the tomatoes, parsley, fennel, bay leaf, thyme, pepper to taste, and saffron. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, then add the fish, white wine, and boiling water to cover. Cover and cook over high heat for 7-8 minutes. Add the mussels, shrimp, and more water to cover. Continue to cook, covered, for another 8 minutes, or until the mussels are open. Remove the fish and shellfish and place in a serving bowl, garnished with chopped parsley. Arrange thick slices of bread in a soup tureen. Strain the bouillabaisse and pour over the bread. Serve the soup and the fish at the same time.

Châteaubriand

2
SERVINGS

Châteaubriand is simply a thickly cut tournedo of between ¾ and 1½ pounds, cut from the thickest part of the fillet. For two people, ¾ pound will suffice. As with tournedos, it is important that they not be overdone but merely seared on the outside and underdone inside
.

¾ pound beef fillet

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Salt

Coarsely ground pepper

Preheat the broiler
.

Slightly flatten the meat with a cleaver. Brush the meat with butter and lightly season with salt and pepper to taste. Broil the Châteaubriand for about 1 minute on each side, basting with additional butter. Lower the oven temperature to 450° F. Transfer the meat to a rack in a baking dish and roast for 12 to 15 minutes. For very rare, the meat should reach an internal temperature of 115°-120° F. Place the meat on a heated platter and let stand 5 minutes before serving. Serve with bearnaise sauce (see page
61
).

Hemingway takes time to share a traditional meal in Hong Kong, March 1941, while covering the war in China.

Thomas Hudson also remembers his time in China, describing Hong Kong for Honest Lil, a prostitute at El Floridita. Hemingway had followed Martha Gellhorn to China in January 1941. They were both covering the China-Japan War, and witnessed the destruction and the squalor of the front in Canton. Hemingway foresaw the eventuality of war between Japan and the United States as well as Communist domination of China after the war. He would not use his experience as the subject of a novel or story, but he would share with Thomas Hudson his image of Hong Kong. As he had done with Richard Cantwell in Venice, Hemingway takes this opportunity to share his pleasure in experiencing the color and flavor of a Hong Kong market:

I would wake in the mornings and even if it were raining I would walk to the fish market. Their fish are almost the same as ours and the basic food fish is the red grouper. But they had very fat and shining pompano and huge prawns, the biggest I have ever seen. The fish market was wonderful in the early morning when the fish were brought in shining and fresh caught and there were quite a few fish I did not know, but not many and there were also wild ducks for sale that had been trapped. You could see pintails, teal, widgeon, both males and females in winter plumage … as delicate and complicated as our wood ducks. I would look at them and their unbelievable plumage and their beautiful eyes and see the shining, fat, new-caught fish and the beautiful vegetables all manured in the truck gardens by human excrement, they called it “night-soil” there, and the vegetables were as beautiful as snakes. I went to the market every morning and every morning it was a delight.
¹⁹

The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea
is an idyll of the sea as sea, as un-Byronic and un-Melvillian as Homer himself, and communicated in a prose as calm and compelling as Homer’s verse. No real artist symbolizes or allegorizes—and Hemingway is a real artist—but every real work of art exhales symbols and allegories. So does this short but not small masterpiece.

—Bernard Berenson, art historian

He held the story in his mind for fifteen years before making it his own. In the mid-1930s he heard the tale of an old Cuban fisherman, fishing alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, who hooked into a great fish. The giant marlin pulled the old man far out to sea. He fought the fish for two days and nights, and was finally able to raise the fish and harpoon him. When the sharks came, the old man fought them alone and lost. When the fishermen found the old man, crying and exhausted in his skiff, the sharks were still circling.
²⁰

Hemingway began writing
The Old Man and the Sea
in 1951. It was completed in eight weeks, and he would not rewrite a word. He appeared to have reached the pinnacle of the art for which he strove most of his life.
The Old Man and the Sea
was a tribute to the “simple strength of character, deeper than [the] will.”
²¹
Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for the book in 1952, and it was cited specifically when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

The story begins as the old man returns yet again from the Gulf Stream with an empty skiff. The boy, who now fishes with a lucky boat, helps the old man carry home his tattered sail and gear. They speak of baseball and inexperience and wisdom. The boy leaves the shack for sardines. He returns with supper—black beans and rice, fried bananas, stew, and two bottles of Hatuey beer—in a metal container from the Terrace, compliments of Martin, the owner. The old man is proud, accepting the gift, assured that he will return the favor with the belly meat from a great fish.

“What have you got?” he asked.

“Supper,” said the boy. “We’re going to have supper.”

“I’m not very hungry.”

“Come on and eat. You can’t fish and not eat.”

“I have,” the old man said getting up and taking the newspaper and folding it. Then he started to fold the blanket.

“Keep the blanket around you,” the boy said.

“You’ll not fish without eating while I’m alive.”

“Then live a long time and take care of yourself,” the old man said. “What are we eating?”
²²

Fried Bananas

Hemingway calls this dish fried bananas in
The Old Man and the Sea,
but Santiago and Manolin no doubt enjoy fried plantains
(platanos),
a larger, flatter version of the common banana with more starch and less sugar. The cooking method depends on the ripeness of the fruit, with the less ripe, very green plantains requiring an additional cooking stage
.

4
SERVINGS

2-4 plantains, either very green or almost completely black

Oil for frying

To peel the plantains, cut the tips of both ends, make slits in the skin lengthwise, and unwrap the peel of the plantain under running water.

For green plantains: Cut the plantain into 1-inch slices. Deep-fry over low heat until tender. Drain on brown paper. When cool enough to touch, flatten each slice with the palm of your hand. Reheat the oil over high heat until very hot. Dip each plantain slice in a bowl of iced, salted water. Pat dry, then fry quickly until browned. Drain on brown paper and serve.

For black plantains: Slice the plantains thinner, about ¼ to ½ inch thick, and cut diagonally to produce longer chips. Deep-fry in hot oil until dark brown. Drain on brown paper and serve.

Note
: Learn from Nick Adams’s example in “Big Two-Hearted River”: wait awhile for the plantains to cool before eating them, otherwise a burned tongue may put you off these delicious treats for years.

Aboard the
Pilar

More than the local characters in the bars and restaurants, stronger than the windswept memories of Paris and Africa and the East, more than the early morning processionals from fishing villages along the coast, it was the sea itself that mingled Hemingway’s soul with that of Cuba. Sailing out into the Gulf Stream, fishing for giant marlin, Hemingway engaged his passion head on. As we saw with the bullfights, and will soon see with the safari, when Hemingway was truly living, his appetite grew accordingly.

Aboard the
Pilar
, Ernest’s beloved fishing boat, food took on epic proportions. Even something as simple as a peanut butter and onion sandwich, his lunchtime favorite, can be elevated to heroic status while at sea:

“Well, go down to the galley and see if that bottle of tea is cold and bring it up. Antonio’s butchering the fish. So make a sandwich will you, please?”

“Sure. What kind of sandwich?”

“Peanut butter and onion if there’s plenty of onion.”

“Peanut butter and onion it is, sir.”

He handed a sandwich, wrapped in a paper towel segment, to Thomas Hudson and said, “One of the highest points in the sandwichmaker’s art. We call it the Mount Everest Special. For Commanders only.”
²³

Mount Everest Special

A. E. Hotchner, in his biography
, Papa Hemingway,
notes that this sandwich, along with a glass of red wine, was Hemingway’s favorite.
²⁴

1
SERVING

2 slices white bread

Peanut butter

2 thick slices onion

Spread 1 slice bread thickly with peanut butter. Place onion slices on top. Cover with second slice of bread.

THE PILLAR OF THE
PILAR

In 1928, aboard Sloppy Joe Russell’s fishing boat, the
Anita
out of Key West, Hemingway sought shelter from a squall in the Dry Tortugas islands. There he encountered a run-down sailboat, the
Joaquin Cisto
, and its amiable skipper, Gregorio Fuentes. Fuentes helped the young and inexperienced Hemingway contact Key West and served him wine and raw onions, a favorite combination. Hemingway and Fuentes became great friends, and Gregorio would help Ernest out of many tight spots similar to the Dry Tortugas, eventually working aboard Hemingway’s own boat. In the mid-1930s they parted company, only to reunite in Cuba in the early 1940s when Fuentes accepted the job as mate, deckhand, and cook of the
Pilar
.

Gregorio was not only an excellent cook but also took charge of the “Ethylic Department,” a duty of great importance aboard the
Pilar
. Fuentes was a meticulous and thoughtful bartender, complementing Ernest’s desire to be a gracious and generous host. Hemingway kept the ship’s bar well stocked, aiming to satisfy the thirsts of all those aboard. Ernest had a habit of not drinking from a bottle opened the previous day and so would open a new bottle every day. Fuentes kept the drinks refreshed, believing that a cold drink should be held no more than half an hour and then be discarded and replaced. After the drinks were served and it was time to eat, Fuentes truly made his name and reputation. Fuentes took great pride in pleasing those for whom he cooked. His dishes display the simple techniques and subtle tricks of a master and should be enjoyed in the spirit of camaraderie and adventure that flourished aboard Hemingway’s boat. Gregorio could turn the galley of the
Pilar
into a kitchen worthy of the Ritz in Paris. In fact, when Charlie Ritz visited Cuba in 1954, Ernest bet him that Gregorio was a better chef than anyone in the Ritz’s employ. It was a challenge that Gregorio embraced with pride. Fuentes set out to astound the Frenchman with three dishes, the likes of which he had never tasted.

Spaghetti

Gregorio’s recipe for spaghetti sauce is more delicious than even Charlie Ritz had ever tasted. The following recipe is based upon the instructions he gave to Norberto Fuentes, author of
Hemingway in Cuba.