by Craig Boreth
Crabe Mexicaine
Brush the mushrooms with olive oil on both sides and grill, either in a broiler or over coals, for about 15 minutes on each side. While the mushrooms are grilling, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a saucepan over low heat. When frothy, add the tomatoes, okra, and peppers and cook, covered, for 30 minutes. When the mushrooms are done, slice and arrange them decoratively on a warm serving platter, leaving an inch of space around the edge of the platter.
Melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in a skillet. Add the parsley and crabmeat and toss until hot. Arrange the crabmeat in the center of the mushrooms. Surround the crabmeat with the vegetable mixture. Do the final preparation of the white wine sauce, then cover the crabmeat and vegetables with the sauce. Reheat the tomato sauce to a simmer and pour a ribbon of tomato sauce around the edge of the platter.
Walking home from Pruniers, sated and very happy, the Hemingways strolled through le Jardin des Tuileries, a park he reserved for romance in his writing, and they admired the Arc du Carrousel and the Arc de Triomphe in the distant darkness. Far beyond, across an expanse of distance and time, through warm memories, they reminisced about days in Milan and Switzerland, again thinking of wonderful foods. Hadley recalls Biffi’s in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, eating fruit cup with wine from a tall, glass pitcher (see Capri on page 163). Ernest recalls a pension in Chamby, owned by a German Swiss family named Gangwisch, who served a wonderful trout dish, boiled “in a liquor made of wine vinegar, bay leaves, and a dash of red pepper.”20 They “ate out on the porch with the mountainside dropping off below and [they] could look across the lake and see the Dent du Midi with the snow half down it and the trees at the mouth of the Rhàne where it flowed into the lake.”21
Trout au Bleu
By his mid-20s, Hemingway was a connoisseur of trout dishes. This method was one of his favorites, as “it preserves the true trout flavor better than almost any way of cooking.”22 Ideally, the trout should be alive immediately before cooking to produce the blue color in the skin and the freshest taste. You may, though, use very freshly killed fish from the market. Because of this necessity for very fresh or live fish, this dish is not very well known:
You have to go back in the country to get trout cooked that way. You come up from the stream to a chalet and ask them if they know how to cook blue trout. If they don’t you walk on a way. If they do, you sit down on the porch with the goats and the children and wait. Your nose will tell you when the trout are boiling. Then after a little while you will hear a pop. That is the Sion being uncorked. Then the woman of the chalet will come to the door and say, “It is prepared, Monsieur.” Then you can go away and I will do the rest myself.23
4 SERVINGS
1 pint vinegar
2 tablespoons salt
4 carrots, sliced
4 onions, quartered
Sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
Sprig of parsley
Dash of crushed red pepper flakes
6 peppercorns
4 live or very fresh trout
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
4 tablespoons melted pepper
In a large pot, prepare a court-bouillon: to 5 quarts water add the vinegar, salt, carrots, onions, and herbs in a bunch (you may want to bundle herbs in cheesecloth). Bring to a boil, then decrease heat and simmer for 1 hour. After 50 minutes, add the red pepper flakes and peppercorns (if added earlier they will impart too much bitterness to the broth). When the court-bouillon is done, strain through a fine sieve and reserve the liquid.
Pour the liquid into a shallow pan and bring to a boil. For live trout, kill the fish with a sharp blow to the head (see The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook for an introduction to coping with the trauma of fishmurdering). With minimal handling, gut and clean the fish. Plunge the fish into the boiling broth and simmer for 6-7 minutes for small trout, 8-10 minutes for larger fish. Remove the fish, drain, garnish with fresh parsley, and serve immediately with the melted butter poured over the fish.
Hemingway after a successful day of trout fishing.
Fame Became of Him
The meal at Prunier shows that, even while relatively poor, Hemingway had an understanding of fine dining that would serve him well when he became “Papa” and abandoned the cafés of Montparnasse in favor of the Ritz or the Hotel Crillon on the right bank of the Seine. When the poet Ernest Walsh invited Hemingway to lunch “at a restaurant that was the best and most expensive in the Boulevard St. Michel quarter,” he once again took advantage of the oysters served at the finer establishments. Hemingway orders two dozen of the “expensive flat faintly coppery marennes, not the familiar, deep, inexpensive portugaises … picking them from their bed of crushed ice on the silver plate, watching their unbelievably delicate brown edges react and cringe as I squeezed lemon juice on them and separated the holding muscle from the shell and lifted them to chew them carefully.”24
When the lunch is ordered, Hemingway chooses tournedos with sauce bearnaise, french-fried potatoes, and a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape, an ambitious selection from a man who could hardly afford the appetizer. Nonetheless, it once again shows Hemingway’s knowledge of gastronomy, both as a form of indulgence and as an expression of distaste toward his endowed host as he tempts young Hemingway with the promise of a literary award from the Dial, the most prestigious literary magazine in America at the time.
THE MENU
Lunch with Ernest Walsh
Marennes
Tournedos with Sauce Béarnaise
French-fried Potatoes
Wines
Pouilly-Fuissé with the marennes
Châteauneuf du Pape
with the steak
Tournedos with Sauce Béarnaise
I figured the butter would be good for him.25
4 SERVINGS
For the Beef
2 tablespoons butter
4 slices fillet of beef, ¾ inch thick
4 slices white bread
For the Béarnaise Sauce
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon heavy cream
½ teaspoon salt
Dash of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar
4 tablespoons butter, in small pieces
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon
1 teaspoon chopped chervil
Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a small skillet. Brown the beef slices well on both sides, with the meat still rare in the middle (this dish caters to Ernest’s taste for rarely cooked meat; it should never be cooked well done). Cut the bread into large croutons the same size as the tournedos. In a clean pan, saute the croutons in the remaining tablespoon of butter until they are golden brown. Place one tournedo on each crouton and serve with bearnaise sauce.
To make the sauce: Bring 2 inches of water to a simmer in the bottom of a double boiler. Combine the egg yolks, cream, salt, cayenne pepper, and vinegar in the top of the double boiler and whisk together. Place over the bottom half of the double boiler. Whisking constantly, add the butter, a little at a time. Whisk until the butter is melted and the sauce is thickened. Add the herbs. Pour the sauce over the tournedos.
French-fried Potatoes (Pommes de Terre Frites)
4 SERVINGS
4 medium potatoes
4 cups vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
Wash, peel, and cut the potatoes into strips of ¼- to ½-inch thickness. Place the strips in a bowl of cold water until ready for frying. Pour the oil into a deep fryer. If you do not have a deep fryer, use a large saucepan and a wire basket to hold the potatoes. You may also simply place the potatoes in the oil and remove with a slotted spoon, but a wire basket makes the process much easier. Heat the oil to approximately 350° F. Dry the potatoes completely and gently lower them into the oil. Fry until just before the potatoes turn golden, about 10 minutes. Remove the potatoes and drain. Heat the oil to the smoking point, replace the potatoes, and fry until golden brown and crisp, 8-10 minutes. Season w
ith salt and pepper to taste.
On the Road with F. Scott Fitzgerald
The first time I ever met Scott Fitzgerald a very strange thing happened.26
Legend has it that Hemingway first met Fitzgerald at the Dingo Bar in Paris in the spring of 1925. Fitzgerald, already famous, ordered champagne, lavished Ernest with praise for his Nick Adams stories from in our time, asked Ernest if he slept with his wife before marriage, and passed out. It was not the last time that Scott would praise Hemingway’s work. Scott’s lobbying eventually helped ensure Ernest’s contract with Scribner’s for the publications of The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises the following year. It was also not the last time Scott would pass out from drink in Hemingway’s company.
Shortly after their initial meeting, Scott asked Ernest to accompany him down to Lyon to pick up the car that he and his wife, Zelda, had been forced to abandon due to bad weather. Hemingway, eager to see the beautiful springtime country, and having drunk again with Fitzgerald and seen none of the “… chemical changes in Scott that would turn him into a fool,”27 agreed to go along.
After missing his train and abandoning Hemingway in Lyon for the night, Scott finally found Ernest the next morning, and they began their journey home. Ernest had already shrugged off the inconveniences of traveling with Scott so far and could only laugh in bemused astonishment to discover the reason why the Fitzgeralds were held up in Lyon in the first place. The car’s top had been damaged in Marseilles, and Zelda, who detested car tops, had it cut away. So, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, with a picnic lunch from the hotel, departed for Paris in their Renault permanent convertible. They traveled about an hour before they were halted by rain, and continued the eating and drinking they began earlier that morning:
In that day we were halted by rain possibly ten times. They were passing showers and some of them were longer than others. If we had waterproof coats it would have been pleasant enough to drive in that spring rain. As it was we sought the shelter of trees or halted at cafes alongside the road. We had a marvelous lunch from the hotel at Lyon, an excellent truffled roast chicken, delicious bread, and white Macon wine and Scott was very happy when we drank the white Maconnais at each of our stops.28
Truffle-Roasted Chicken (Poularde Truffée]
3 TO 4 SERVINGS
For this dish, we will simply follow the recipe for roasted chicken that appears on page 73 with one rather expensive exception. The day before roasting, gently loosen the skin on the breast and on each leg. Slide 3 thin slices of black truffle between each breast and the skin, and one slice between the leg meat and the skin. Refrigerate the bird for 24 hours to allow the chicken to take on the flavor of the truffles. Then proceed with the normal roasting recipe.
Later that afternoon, Scott’s hypochondria kicked in and he developed a dread fear of dying of congestion of the lungs. They stopped for the night, tended to Scott’s illness with aspirin and whiskey sours, and had another strange meal together.
After Ernest’s and Scott’s clothes dried, they retired to the hotel dining room and began their meal with snails and a carafe of Fleurie. Shortly after the snails were served, the telephone call to Zelda that Scott had placed earlier finally went through, and he left the table for an hour. Hemingway felt obliged to finish Scott’s snails, “dipping up the butter, garlic, and parsley sauce with broken bits of bread …”29
Given the likelihood that Ernest and Scott sought refuge in Burgundy, these snails are served in the classic manner of the region, stuffed with butter, shallots, and garlic and served piping hot. One can hardly blame Ernest for finishing Scott’s snails before they turned too cold.
Burgundy Snails (Escargots à la Bourguignonne)
Ernest loved to eat snails for the rest of his life. Forrest MacMullen, a close friend from Ketchum, Idaho, recalled preparing “gourmet snails” with Ernests last wife, Mary, when he couldn’t join Ernest down country hunting. He fondly remembers when Ernest would return from the hunt and “inhale two or three racks of snails’.”
While you may want to prepare this dish using live snails, for practical purposes I prefer to start with the canned snails that come packaged with their shells. What you sacrifice in flavor you make up in availability. The elegance of this dish may easily be retained in its presentation.
2 TO 3 SERVINGS (OR 1, SHOULD THE OTHERS LEAVE THE TABLE FOR A WHILE)
1 can escargots (18 snails), with empty shells
6 tablespoons butter, softened
4 shallots, minced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1½ tablespoons minced fresh parsley
½ teaspoon salt
Black pepper
Preheat the oven to 425° F.
Wash the snail shells thoroughly. Drain the liquid from the snails.
Cream together the butter, shallots, garlic, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste with a fork or wooden spoon. Place a small dollop of this snail butter into each shell. Add a snail to each shell, then seal the opening of the shell with more butter.
Ideally the snails should be baked in metal snail dishes, which have small indentations to nest each snail, opened side up. Alternately, you may bake the snails on a baking pan so that the snails rest against each other and will not roll over. Or, you may fill a baking pan halfway with salt and rest the snails securely in the pan (although you do lose any butter runoff this way). The goal here is to retain as much of the snail butter as possible. Bake the snails for 4-5 minutes, or until very hot and bubbling. Serve immediately with plenty of bread for soaking up the snail butter.
Serving Note: In a fine restaurant, along with the snail dishes, escargots would be served with a snail-shaped clamp and small two-pronged forks. You may substitute any small tongs and seafood forks. Quite frankly, feel free to use whatever works.
Poularde de Bresse
We had eaten very good cold chicken at noon but this was still famous chicken country, so we had poularde de Bresse and a bottle of Montagny, a light, pleasant white wine of the neighborhood.30
Bresse is the ancient term for the region surrounding Lyon, and it remains famous for the outstanding quality of its chickens and capons. A poularde is a roasting hen or capon weighing between 3½ and 5 pounds. The two ingredients most commonly associated with poularde de Bresse are truffles and morels. We have already experienced the splendor of truffle-roasted chicken. For chicken with morels, we will saute the chicken parts and top them with a sauce of these delicious mushrooms. This recipe is adapted from Suzane Rodriguez-Hunter’s wonderful historical cookbook of Paris in the 1920s, Found Meals of the Lost Generation.
4 SERVINGS
1 5-pound poularde, or finest quality chicken, cut into pieces
½ cup flour, for dredging, plus 1 teaspoon
6 tablespoons butter
1½ teaspoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup water
1 pound fresh morels, or 3 ounces dried
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 tablespoons chicken stock
¼ cup tomato purée
1 tablespoon chopped parsley, plus extra for garnish
Pepper
Note: If you are using fresh morels, carefully brush the furrowed caps of the mushrooms to remove any sand. If you have dried morels, brush them to remove sand, then reconstitute covered with hot water and a few tablespoons of brandy.
Rinse the chicken and pat dry with a paper towel. Dredge in flour, then place on a cooling rack to dry for 10 minutes.
In a large skillet, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat until bubbling but not brown. Lower the heat and add the chicken (this may be done in two batches if necessary). Brown the chicken on all sides. Cover and allow the chicken to cook, turning occasionally, over low heat while you prepare the mushrooms.
In a small saucepan, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the lemon juice, salt, and water and bring to a simmer. Lower the h
eat and add the morels. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is almost gone.
When the chicken is nearly done, remove to a platter and keep warm. Return the skillet to medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and sauté for one minute. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the remaining teaspoon of flour. Add the morels and any juice, the chicken stock, and tomato puree. Return the skillet to low heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Return the chicken in the sauce and simmer for another 10 minutes, or until done. Place the chicken on a serving platter, pour the morels and sauce over, and garnish with a little chopped fresh parsley.
Scott hardly touched the chicken or the wine, for the day’s drinking, the travel, and the “illness” had taken their toll:
He passed out at the table with his head on his hands. It was natural and there was no theater about it and it even looked as though he were careful not to spill nor break things.31
A few days after their return, Scott brought Ernest a copy of his new book, The Great Gatsby. Hemingway was duly impressed and vowed to look after Scott more thoroughly than he had during their journey from Lyon.
Winter in Austria
We went to Schruns in the Vorarlberg in Austria. After going through Switzerland you came to the Austrian frontier at Feldkirch. The train went through Liechtenstein and stopped at Bludenz where there was a small branch line that ran along a pebbly trout river through a valley of farms and forest to Schruns, which was a sunny market town with sawmills, stores, inns and a good, year-around hotel called the Taube where we lived.32
The Hemingways, with their infant son John (nicknamed Bumby), first arrived in Schruns just before Christmas 1924. At the suggestion of friend and painter Bertram Hartman, they rented two rooms at the Hotel Taube, a family-style inn run by Paul Nels. With their Paris apartment sublet and an exchange rate of 70,000 Austrian kronen to the dollar, they could afford to escape dreary wintertime Paris and spend the entire season skiing and sledding and enjoying the crisp and clear quality of life in the mountains. Early on, Ernest worked on his stories while Hadley knitted or practiced her piano and Bumby played with the local children in the Kinderhaus behind the hotel. Ernest was happily immersed in the local color, emulating the locals and letting his thick black beard grow in for the first time. He took great pleasure in hearing that the locals were calling him “the black, kirsch-drinking Christ,” a testament to the presence that he and his appetites carved out in the mountain valley.