by Craig Boreth
Canadian Bacon
The Colonel enjoys an order of broiled bacon, which is thickly cut and broiled for about 1 minute on each side.
3
FRANCE
An Immovable Feast
“There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it, and you received return for whatever you brought to it.”
—A Moveable Feast
Notre Dame, Îie de la Cité, La Seine in 1920s Paris.
Hemingway returned from the war in January 1919. While he reveled in his role as hero and storyteller—wearing his uniform and cape and giving somewhat embellished talks around Oak Park and Michigan—he sorely missed Agnes and his adventurous life in Italy. In March, he received a letter from Agnes explaining that she could not continue their relationship and planned to marry another. Ernest was crushed, and yet he bragged to his friends that he had “set out to cauterize out her memory… with a course of booze and other women.”1 As usual, he was exaggerating and growing more and more impatient with provincial Oak Park and his mother’s distaste for his “exuberant lifestyle and seeming lack of direction.”2 But that would change soon enough.
After his brief stint in Toronto with the Toronto Star weekly and one last summer at Horton Bay, Hemingway went to Chicago with Bill and Katy Smith and was introduced to an old friend of Katy’s, Hadley Richardson. Their attraction was immediate, and they wrote to each other constantly after Hadley returned home to St. Louis. Like Agnes, she was tall and lovely and considerably older than Ernest. Their relationship continued to flourish, and they were married in Michigan in September 1921.
By Thanksgiving, the arrangements were made to sail for France. At the urging of Sherwood Anderson, a wellknown writer whom Ernest met in Chicago, the Hemingways abandoned their initial plans to travel to Italy. Paris, Anderson insisted, was the place for serious young writers. He even volunteered to write introductory letters to the very elite of the expatriate literary community in Paris, including Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and Sylvia Beach, owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, soon to publish James Joyce’s Ulysses. With income from Hadley’s trust fund and the series of articles Ernest would write as parttime European correspondent for the Toronto Star, they could live quite well in Paris. Caught up in the romance of another European sojourn, Ernest was eager to begin the adventure. Many years later, he would share his memories of those early years, hungry and hard at work in Paris, in A Moveable Feast.
The Hemingways arrived in Paris on December 20, 1921. They quickly found a cheap apartment located above a noisy music hall and an herbalist. Ernest’s work with the Toronto Star let him play at journalism in Paris and across Europe, from Genoa to Constantinople to Austria. He honed his acute powers of observation as he wrote on such diverse topics as peace conferences, tuna fishing, and Mussolini (“Europe’s prized bluffer”). Wherever he found himself, he immersed himself in the people, culture, and cuisine of his host country. Charles Scribner, Jr., called Hemingway “one of the most perceptive travelers in the history of literature.”3 He was also one of literary history’s great eaters and drinkers, and when the haute cuisine of Paris, or the strong drink of Constantinople (see Deusico, page 182), or the hearty fare of Austria presented itself, he quickly became entrenched in the essence of the new and novel tastes.
Upon arrival in Paris, Hemingway was very shy and apprehensive about meeting Pound and Stein. It took only a week, though, before he encountered Sylvia Beach, “the postmistress and den mother of Left Bank Americans.”4 He never used the letter from Anderson, for his literary aspirations were introduction enough for Sylvia. Shakespeare and Company was also a rental library, and Ernest did not have enough money with him to join at first. Sylvia was impressed with Ernest, despite the address on his checkout card, and allowed him to take as many books as he liked and pay her whenever possible. He borrowed books by Turgenev, D. H. Lawrence, and Dostoyevsky. When he shared his wonderful discovery with Hadley, she insisted that they return immediately and pay the deposit for the books. The Hemingways were regular visitors to Shakespeare and Company over the next several years, borrowing books to read by lamplight at home or to take with them on skiing vacations and elsewhere.
That initial deposit cost them an evening out at a café, but they gladly made the sacrifice and ate at home that evening: “We’ll come home and eat here and we’ll have a lovely meal and drink Beaune from the co-operative you can see right out of the window there with the price of the Beaune on the window.”5 But, before they depart for the bookstore, they enjoy a fine lunch of radishes, foie de veau, mashed potatoes, endive salad, and an apple tart.
Hadley and Ernest in 1920s Paris.
THE MENU
Lunch at Home on the
Rue du Cardinal Lemoine
Radishes
Foie de Veau à I’Anglaise
Mashed Potatoes
Endive Salad
Apple Tart
Radishes
In the simple Parisian style, these radishes are served raw with butter and salt. It is assumed that the Hemingway’s cook at the Rue Cardinal du Lemoine prepared all of the dishes for this menu in typical, classic Parisian styles.
2 SERVINGS
6 small pink radishes
1 baguette
Butter
Salt
Wash the radishes in cold water, trimming the root tip and cutting all the leaves to the same length. Pat dry thoroughly on a paper towel. Slice the bread and spread one side of each slice generously with butter. Place 1 radish on each slice, sprinkle with salt to taste, and serve.
Note: To serve the radishes without bread, simply place them in a small bowl, drizzle with melted butter, and season to taste.
Foie de Veau à l’Anglaise
2 SERVINGS
2 tablespoons butter
4 thin slices calf’s liver, about ½ inch thick
4 thin slices bacon
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
½ lemon
Heat the butter in a skillet over medium heat until frothy but not brown. Fry the liver slices quickly, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Remove the slices to a hot serving platter. Fry the bacon in the same pan to desired doneness. Garnish the liver with the bacon, sprinkle on the chopped parsley, squeeze on the lemon juice, and pour the cooking juices on top. Serve immediately.
Endive Salad
2 SERVINGS
2 endives
2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
½ cup artichoke vinaigrette dressing (see page 33) with ½ tablespoon Dijon-style mustard whisked in
Wash the endives thoroughly. Dry. Cut each endive in half lengthwise, then cut across into strips. Discard the bottom slice. Arrange each endive on a salad plate, sprinkle with the chives and dressing, and serve.
Mashed Potatoes
Parisian-style mashed potatoes have a much lighter consistency than those to which most Americans are accustomed. It is essential that you not spare the butter or the milk to reach the consistency of whipped cream in this dish. This recipe is adapted from the 1923 cookbook Colette’s Best Recipes.
2 SERVINGS
3 medium potatoes
½ cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, plus have plenty more on hand
Salt and Pepper
Wash, peel, quarter, and boil the potatoes until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain thoroughly, then return to the boiling pot and heat over low heat until completely dry. Remove the potatoes from the pot, and press through a ricer back into the pot (you may also use a masher or a hand mixer to mash the potatoes, but I find a ricer works best).
In a small saucepan, heat the milk until very hot. While the milk is warming, add the butter and salt and pepper to taste to the potatoes and stir vigorously. When the milk is hot, place the potatoes over medium heat and
add the milk. Whisk the potatoes until they are the consistency of whipped cream. You may need to add more milk or butter to reach this thickness. Simmer the potatoes very gently until they are very hot throughout. Serve immediately.
Apple Tart
1 10-INCH TART
For the Dough
½ cup butter
1½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup ice water
For the Filling
4 baking apples, such as Granny Smith or Stayman, peeled and cored
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
To make the dough with a food processor, fit the processor with the metal blade. Cut the butter into small pieces and place in the bowl of the food processor. Add the flour and sugar. Blend together until dough just begins to adhere to the sides of the bowl. Add the ice water and continue blending until the dough starts to stick together. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
To make the dough by hand, cut the butter into small pieces. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and sugar. Cut the butter into the dry mix with a pastry blender or two knives until it has the texture of coarse crumbs. Add the ice water slowly and mix with a wooden spoon until completely incorporated. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead gently, pushing part of the dough away from you with the heel of your hand, and folding it over onto itself. Repeat a few times. Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
When the dough has chilled, turn it out onto a floured surface. Roll the dough, lifting and turning a quarter-turn after each roll, to a circle of ¼-inch thickness. Transfer the dough to a buttered 10-inch tart pan by rolling the dough around the rolling pin and unrolling it onto the pan. Work the dough into the pan, gently lifting to cover the bottom and sides evenly. Fold over any excess and crimp decoratively. Refrigerate the tart shell for at least 30 minutes, or until ready for filling.
When the shell has chilled, preheat the oven to 350° F. Prick the bottom of the shell several times with a fork. Line the surface of the shell with aluminum foil and fill with dry beans to prevent shrinking or heaving. Bake the tart shell for 20 minutes.
To make the filling, cut the apples into thin slices and toss in a bowl with the lemon juice. Arrange the slices in the tart shell in two layers of overlapping, concentric circles, sprinkling half the sugar on each layer. Drizzle the finished tart with melted butter. Bake at 350° F for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Serve warm.
It was not until March 1922, that Ernest found the courage to call on Gertrude Stein at her studio at 27 Rue de Fleurus. He had no doubt borrowed her books from Shakespeare and Company and was eager to affirm Anderson’s assessment of the importance of her experimental writings, but as a 22-year-old aspiring writer with roots in journalism and a taste for Kipling, he just didn’t get it. When he and Hadley finally visited Gertrude and her partner, Alice Toklas, Ernest could not possibly understand the profound impact that this squat woman with the mobile face would have on his life and his ability to write:
Alice Toklas (left) and Gertrude Stein in the salon of their pavilion located in the courtyard of 27 rue de Fleurus.
My wife and I had called on Miss Stein, and she and the friend who lived with her had been very cordial and friendly and we had loved the big studio with the great paintings. It was like one of the best rooms in the finest museum except there was a big fireplace and it was warm and comfortable and they gave you good things to eat and tea and natural distilled liqueurs made from purple plums, yellow plums or wild raspberries.6
Hemingway spent many afternoons sitting before Miss Stein in the studio, listening attentively to her instructions on the rhythm of words, the power of repetition, and sex and writers and life. She found him an extremely handsome young man, eager to learn. Their friendship grew into the relationship between master and disciple, and each benefited. Ernest, while working for Ford Madox Ford on the Transatlantic Review, insisted that Ford publish Stein’s immense The Making of Americans serially in the magazine. As with most friends of those days, where Ernest was once the willing student, eventually the success of the disciple overshadowed that of the master. Ernest was often less than gracious, seeing clearly the faults and shortcomings of those whom he had once so deeply admired. Stein was no exception. He saw in her the cardinal vice of writers, one that he could never forgive: laziness. He saw her through new, seemingly clearer eyes, her genius turned to arrogance, and their friendship dissolved in venomous public critiques. In the early days, though, when there was much to learn and a childlike eagerness to listen, Ernest drank in the warmth of Miss Stein’s studio and partook of her philosophy as well as of her food and drink. The following recipes are adapted from The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.
Visitandines
These small cakes were first prepared for Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas by Léonie, an early femme de ménage in their home. She claimed that the name was derived from the religious order of the Visitation, the nuns of which first prepared them. Visitandines were invented to help the nuns use up their surplus egg whites.
ABOUT 36 CAKES
¼ cup butter
8 egg whites
cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup apricot jam
Preheat the oven to 400° F.
In a saucepan, heat the butter slowly until slightly browned. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Combine 6 of the egg whites in a bowl and stir very slowly with a wooden spoon until completely mixed. This step may take up to 15 minutes. Fold in the flour and mix until perfectly smooth. Add the vanilla and heated butter. Beat the 2 remaining egg whites to stiff peaks, then add to the batter.
Lightly butter small muffin tins. Fill halfway with batter and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until visitandines are pale gold in color. Remove from tins to a cooling rack. In a small saucepan, heat the apricot jam just to boiling. Strain through a fine sieve. Paint the cakes with apricot glaze.
Note: You may wish to frost the visitandines with kirsch icing, which is simply butter cream with a few tablespoons of kirsch added.
Black Currant Liqueur
ABOUT 2¾ QUARTS
½ pound raspberries
3 pounds black currants
1 cup black currant leaves
1 quart vodka
3 pounds sugar
3 cups water
Wash and drain the raspberries and black currants. Place the berries in a large ceramic or glass bowl and mash thoroughly. Cover the bowl with cheese-cloth and set aside in a cool place for 24 hours.
After this time, add the black currant leaves and vodka to the bowl. Cover the bowl with a plate and set aside again for another 24 hours.
After the second day, pour the mash through a fine sieve into another bowl, forcing through all of the liquid with a pestle. In a large saucepan, combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil over low heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove the syrup from heat and allow to cool completely. Add the syrup to the berries, cover with a cloth, and allow to stand for several hours. Filter the liqueur through cheesecloth into bottles. It may be served immediately.
Hemingway lived in Paris, off and on, for eight years. He was educated at the feet of Stein and Pound and Fitzgerald, and he worked very hard to turn his writing into his art. He worked hardest in a small rented studio on the Rue Descartes, hunched over the Corona typewriter Hadley bought for him, sipping kirsch to keep warm by the fire and eating mandarins and chestnuts. He also discovered such Parisian cafés as the Café du Dôme, the Closerie des Lilas, and a “warm and clean and friendly”7 café on the Place St. Michel. He would order a café au lait, a rum St. James, and a dozen of the very cheap oysters known as portugaises and wrote stories like “The Three Day Blow.”<
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When there was no money, when he was unable to sell his stories and had given up journalism altogether and dared not gamble on the horses to support his wife and newborn son, he discovered strategies to hide his hunger or use it in his work:
By any standards we were still very poor and I still made such small economies as saying that I had been asked out for lunch and then spending two hours walking in the Luxembourg gardens and coming back to describe the marvelous lunch to my wife. When you are twenty-five and are a natural heavy-weight, missing a meal makes you very hungry. But it also sharpens all of your perceptions, and I found that many of the people I wrote about had very strong appetites and a great taste and desire for food, and most of them were looking forward to having a drink.8
He often used the Luxembourg gardens to relieve his hunger, as “you saw and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the Place de I’Observatoire to the rue de Vaurigard.”9 In the Luxembourg museum, the paintings by Cézanne appeared sharper and clearer and more beautiful because he was “belly-empty, hollow-hungry.”10 One early afternoon late in 1924, Ernest decided to walk to Shakespeare and Company, carefully avoiding streets filled with aromatic restaurants and cafés. That day, Sylvia Beach had good news: a letter had arrived from Der Querschnitt, a German magazine, which had accepted two of his stories and paid him 600 francs. “Hunger is healthy and the pictures do look better when you are hungry,” but “eating is wonderful too and do you know where you are going to eat right now? Lipp’s is where you are going to eat and drink too.”11