by Craig Boreth
Oxtail Stew
4 SERVINGS
2 pounds oxtails, cut into pieces
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons peanut oil
4 cups water
2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon crumbled dried oregano
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon capers
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
Season the oxtails with salt and pepper to taste. Heat the peanut oil in a stockpot over medium heat. Add the tail pieces and brown thoroughly for 8–10 minutes. Add water, onions, garlic, oregano, and green peppers, and cook for about 1 hour, or until the tail meat is just tender. Add the tomatoes, capers, and potatoes and continue cooking until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Mash up some of the potatoes to thicken the stew. Cook for another 15–20 minutes and serve.
It was also over N’bebia’s campfire that Ernest and Mary cultivated their taste for lion, which they first ate raw after Ernest’s first kill in 1953:
Ernest’s lion was a young male in his prime, four or five years old, with immense fore- and hind-leg muscles and thick bones and muscles in his paws. Watching the skinning, Ernest bent down and with his pocketknife cut out a bit of the tenderloin beside the spine, chewed some and offered me a tidbit. We both thought the clean pink flesh delicious, steak tartare without the capers. Denis scoffed that it would make us sick and Philip (Percival) politely declined a taste. In Kenya neither the natives nor the whites ate lion, having against it some taboo which they would never define for me.6
They would eventually develop several recipes for lion meat, which they found “firmer than Italian veal, but not tough, and as bland in flavor without a hint of the wilderness. Later [they] dressed it up with garlic and onion and various tomato and cheese sauces, as [they] had done with vitello in Italy.”7 In December 1955, Ernest provided a recipe for a Sports Illustrated article entitled “A Christmas Choice of Fair and Fancy Game.” Receiving top billing above President Eisenhower’s Colorado Mountain Trout and Baron de Rothschild’s Hare a la Royale was the following dish by the most famous sportsman of them all. Although its creator is falsely claimed to be a “first-rate cook,” the recipe itself is pure Hemingway. To re-create this dish, simply follow Ernest’s instructions, substituting veal for the lion fillet.
Ernest Hemingway’s Fillet of Lion
First obtain your lion. Skin him out and remove the two strips of tenderloin from either side of the backbone. These should hang overnight in a tree out of reach of hyenas and should be wrapped in cheesecloth to prevent them being hit by blowflies.
The following day, either for breakfast, lunch or dinner, slice the tenderloin as though you were cutting small tenderloin steaks. You may cut them as thin or as thick as you like, and if you should be fortunate enough to have eggs, which will usually be brought in by natives for whom you have killed the lion, if these natives possess chickens, dip the small steaks in beaten and seasoned egg and then in either corn meal or cracker meal or bread crumbs. Then grill the steaks over the coals of an open fire.
If you have no eggs, simply grill the steaks, basting them preferably with the lard made from eland fat, after having salted and peppered them liberally, but not using too much salt to destroy the delicate flavor.
If you are fortunate enough to have lemon or sour orange in camp, serve a half of lemon or sour orange with each portion of lion steak.8
Sun Valley and Ketchum, Idaho
In September 1936, shortly before he left to cover the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway hunted grizzly bears near the Nordquist Ranch on the far edge of Yellowstone National Park near the Montana border. Ernest killed two bears and experienced that familiar yet fleeting elation when the hunting or the fishing or the writing went very well. When a third grizzly was killed a few days later, “he insisted on a lunch of bear steaks. … The meat was rank and stringy, cooked middling rare, and eaten in the form of sandwiches made from sourdough pancakes spread with orange marmalade. But Ernest consumed his portion with obvious gusto, chewing long and appreciatively, his black beard glossy with bear fat.”9
This was Ernest Hemingway in his element. As much as he enjoyed living and fishing in Cuba, and as much as Spain drew him in the late 1930s, he felt most genuinely at home in the mountains and valleys of Wyoming and eventually in and around Sun Valley, Idaho, where Ernest lived the last few years of his life.
Ernest’s arrival in Idaho in 1939 coincided with the outbreak of war across Europe and the de facto end of his second marriage to Pauline Pfeiffer. Returned from war in Spain, working hard on For Whom the Bell Tolls, and having recently moved to Cuba with soon-to-be third wife Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway returned for another fall season of hunting in Wyoming. When Pauline joined him there, recently back from Europe with a bad cold, Hemingway’s fear of illness and desire to escape his marriage drove him to summon Martha to meet him at the newly opened Sun Valley resort in central Idaho.
Hemingway and the lion that succumbed to his bullet on the Serengeti Plain, January 1934.
Averell Harriman and the Union Pacific Rail-road developed the village of Sun Valley to be a world-class ski resort. Gene Van Guilder ran publicity for the resort, and Lloyd Arnold was its photographer. The chief publicity campaign for the resort involved attracting celebrities to show off the skiing and hunting that Sun Valley offered. Hemingway and Martha occupied suite 206 in the Sun Valley lodge, which he later renamed “Glamour House.” Although Ernest was suspicious of Gene and Lloyd at first, they quickly became good friends and hunted together regularly. When Gene was tragically killed in a hunting accident, Ernest delivered a stirring eulogy, part of which now graces Hemingway’s own memorial just outside Sun Valley, overlooking Trail Creek. Lloyd Arnold would eventually write a book about Hemingway’s days in Idaho, High on the Wild, which contains many of his wonderful photographs of Papa with his friends and family and other celebrities such as Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, and Clark Gable.
In the late 1950s, when Ernest and his last wife, Mary, decided it was time to finally leave Cuba, they returned to Idaho to settle in the land they truly loved. They bought the Topping estate, with dramatic views of Ketchum, Adam’s Gulch, and the mountains. Hemingway lived out his final few years in Ketchum, until he ended it, on his own terms, on a sunny morning in July 1961. He is buried in the Ketchum Cemetery.
Hemingway was drawn to Idaho for the hunting. He did very little fishing and in fact hunted primarily birds, including duck, pheasant, sage hen, and partridge. Lloyd Arnold recounts one of his first hunting trips with Hemingway, who was characteristically enthusiastic about his forth-coming adventures:
My wife Tillie and I were barely out of bed the morning of September 22 [1939] when Ernest called about breakfast with us.
“Good morning, Chief. What a beauty Indian summer day….”
Ernest said that the ducks on the lagoon by the sun deck at Glamour House were his alarm clock that morning. “I came to, reaching for a gun….”
He’d gone to sleep on my Idaho Encyclopedia and had been absorbing it since first light. “A hell of a lot of state, this Idaho, that I don’t know about.”10
Ernest’s standard western-ranch-style breakfast was a fried-egg sandwich, complete with the ubiquitous raw onion. He would later revive his taste for this breakfast while on safari in 1953, when the overabundance of exotic game dishes rekindled his appetite for the simple, hearty breakfast of his days in Wyoming and Idaho. To re-create Ernest’s hunting breakfast, fry up an egg in plenty of butter and make the sandwich of the egg, ham, some thickly sliced onion, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and a mustard pickle on slices of hearty bread.11
In the later years, the Hemingways rarely ate out in Ketchum. Occasionally they would have a steak at the Alpine, dine on leg of lamb prepared by Gloria, the Basque owner of the Rio Club, host a party at the
Trail Creek Cabin, or have a special meal at the Christiania Restaurant on Sun Valley Road, where Ernest had his last meal on the evening of July 1,1961. But Ernest and Mary usually ate at home in the later years, or shared a meal with close friends like Duke MacMullen or Lloyd and Tillie Arnold.
Tillie Arnold recalls once preparing an excellent roast on a rotisserie, which Ernest loved. When Papa asked if he could take some home, Mary gently chided him that it was rude to ask such a thing. “Well,” Tillie fondly recalls, “Mary didn’t know it then, but Papa always had some to take home.”
Ernest and Mary were very fond of a delicious fruit compote for dessert, reminiscent of the fruit cup that Ernest and Hadley enjoyed in Milan in the early 1920s. This version is a little more elaborate and a lot stronger! Keep in mind that if any of the ingredients are out of season, you can substitute any favorite fruit that is available.
Fruit Compote
8 TO 10 SERVINGS
2 cups each honeydew melon, crenshaw melon, cantaloupe, and watermelon, cut into ¾ inch chunks
1 cup halved grapes
2 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into ¾-inch chunks
2 pears, peeled, cored, and cut into ¾-inch chunks
2 peaches, peeled, pitted, and cut into ¾-inch chunks
1 orange, peeled, sections cut in half
½ cup pitted and halved cherries
2 bananas, sliced
1½ cups kirsch
Cut all of the fruit over a large salad bowl or punch bowl, so as not to lose any of the juice. Stir the fruit to mix thoroughly. Pour the kirsch over the fruit and place in the refrigerator for several hours. Stir the fruit frequently. MacMullen recommends that you resist the temptation to throw away the fruit and just drink the sauce.
MOUNTAINSIDE PICNIC
During his frequent hunting trips, or any time hunger called in the mountains, Hemingway loved to picnic. In fact, his granddaughter, Joan Hemingway, wrote a wonderful book entitled The Picnic Gourmet (New York: Random House, 1977), that recreates “a boating picnic” that she enjoyed as a young girl with Ernest and Mary in Cuba.
For Ernest, eating outdoors beside an open fire with a small group of friends was the only way to satisfy the hunger that the hunt and the mountain air inspired. As he had learned from his father never to shoot over the limit or waste what he killed, Hemingway’s hunting meals invariably included leftovers. After a dinner of venison, Ernest would look at a half-full platter and think aloud that it would make a “good sandwich in a duck blind.”12 More often than not, it eventually did just that. The picnics, too, were nothing fancy and included mostly leftovers brought along by Mary or Tillie Arnold. Mary would bring her chili and Tillie a leftover roast, and they would cook them together and tailgate beside the road.
Forest MacMullen recalls taking along Cornish pasties, or deep-dish meat pies, when he and Ernest went down country hunting. This dish, perfectly suited for leftovers, is delicious either hot or cold.
Cornish Pasties
4 SERVINGS
For the Piecrust, see Campfire Apple Pie, page 11, with below exceptions
For the Filling
¾- to 1-pound round steak, cut into ¾-inch cubes
2 medium potatoes, cut into ¾-inch cubes
2 medium onions, chopped
¼ cup fresh, flat parsley leaves
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 package Lipton’s French Onion Soup mix
To make the piecrust, follow the instructions for Hemingway’s Campfire Apple Pie (see page 11) with the following alterations. First, before rolling the dough, form it gently into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour up to several days. Second, you need not spread the extra shortening on the crust. Third, you may want to use a rolling pin rather than an old bottle (although the bottle works perfectly well).
Preheat the oven to 350° F.
For the filling, mix all of the ingredients, except the butter and the soup mix, together in a large bowl. Pour the mixture into the pie shell, press the mixture firmly into the shell, and smooth level. Rub the butter over the filling and sprinkle on the soup mix. Roll the top piecrust onto a floured rolling pin and unroll over the pie. Seal the edges of the crust with your thumb and cut two slashes in the top crust to let steam escape. Place the pie on the center rack and bake for about 1 hour. To test for doneness, stick a toothpick in the center. It should pull out easily. Remove from the oven and let stand 5 minutes before serving. Serve with plenty of ketchup to taste.
With this hearty meat pie as a starter, you may indulge in true Hemingway fashion whenever the opportunity to picnic presents itself. Take along some dishes from Ernest’s past. The recipes may be decades old, but a few minutes over the fire may render them, and the memories they evoke, more delicious than when they were first enjoyed. Take along some of the venison prepared by Frau Nels at the Hotel Taube in Schruns, Cipriani’s duck from Harry’s in Venice, Gregorio’s beef stew from Cuba, and some fruit cup from Biffi’s in the Galleria in Milan. It is a Hemingway buffet of sorts, leaping effortlessly across space and time, from real life to the reality of great fiction, igniting the senses to degrees only possible through indulgence in honest art and great food.
Hemingway, Forrest “Duke” MacMullen, and Mr. Owl, who was shot accidentally and then nursed back to health by Hemingway.
7
THE HEMINGWAY WINE CELLAR
“Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing which may be purchased.”
—Death in the Afternoon
Hotel de la Mére Poularde, Mont-Saint-Michel, August 1944
(Left to right) Time magazine correspondent Bill Walton, Mademoiselle Chevalier, Hemingway, an Army Signal Corp photographer, Monsieur Chevalier, and Life photographer Bob Capa.
In his treatise on bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway included in his glossary of terms an entry for Vino. With the air of authority of a world-class sommelier, he provided to Spanish wine:
For any one who comes to Spain thinking only in terms of Sherry and Malaga the splendid, light, dry, red wines will be a revelation. The vin ordinaire in Spain is consistently superior to that of France since it is never tricked or adulterated, and is only about a third as expensive. I believe it to be the best in Europe by far.1
That Hemingway could speak with such authority in his early 30s is not surprising. He had been living in Paris through most of the 1920s and had traveled throughout Europe during that time. In addition, he had already developed a knack for speaking as an authority on subjects of which he knew far less than he knew of wine. Wine was a lifelong indulgence for Hemingway, from the days of his “boyhood when all red wines were bitter except port and drinking was the process of getting down enough of anything to make you feel restless,” to the time when he developed “a palate that will give me the pleasure of enjoying completely a Chateaux Margaux or a Haut Brion.”2
The Hemingway Wine Cellar contains only a fraction of the wines associated with Ernest Hemingway and those mentioned in his work. I have chosen to include here only those wines that are given prominent mention in his writing, wines of which he was especially fond, wines that accompany recipes in this book particularly well, and wines around which intriguing anecdotes arose. Without further ado, let us adjourn to the cellar.
Algerian Wine
We ate very cheaply in an Algerian restaurant and I liked the food and the Algerian wine. The fire-eater was a nice man and it was interesting to see him eat, as he could chew with his gums as well as most people can with their teeth.3
As Hemingway waited to meet Fitzgerald in Lyon in A Moveable Feast, he met a man who ate fire and bent coins with his gums for a living. It is fitting that they should choose Algerian wine to wash away the aftertaste of the gentleman’s vocation. Algeria’s dark, heav
y red wines are highly alcoholic, as much as 15 percent, due to the high sugar content produced by extremely hot Algerian summers. These wines were often blended with French wines to produce deeper color, fuller body, and higher alcohol content.
Asti
On Saturday night, August 31,1918, Ernest and Agnes von Kurowsky dined together at the Du Nord restaurant in Milan. It was probably their first real date, at least in Ernest’s eyes. Agnes had just ended a relationship with an Italian captain and was being careful not to do “anything foolish.”4 But Ernest’s charms and boyish enthusiasm eventually wore her down. Their love affair formed the romantic centerpiece of A Farewell to Arms.
At the Du Nord, Agnes and Ernest shared a bottle of Asti Spumante, the sparkling white wine that had become her favorite. If Ernest was able to stomach this often “sickly sweet”5 low-alcohol wine in 1918, he certainly could not do so after living in Paris, marrying and remarrying, and sitting down to write his second novel. After Agnes betrayed his love, Ernest reserved a special place for Agnes’s favorite beverage in that novel of the war:
Later, below in the town, I watched the snow falling, looking out of the window of the bawdy house, the house for officers, where I sat with a friend and two glasses drinking a bottle of Asti, and, looking out at the snow falling slowly and heavily, we knew it was all over for that year.6
Barbera
It is false to say that Ernest Hemingway wrote exclusively from his firsthand experience. What is true is that he created characters who appeared to have had such experiences even if their creator in fact had not. Hemingway was a great student of those things about which he wrote, be it war or revolution or bullfighting. In A Farewell to Arms, he re-created the retreat from Caporetto “so accurately that his Italian readers will later say he was present at that nation’s embarrassment.”7 He was not. And yet, he was able to capture not only the events and the landscapes of the retreat, but also the essence of a national character. In one instance, Hemingway included a reference to Barbera wine—a heavy, deep red wine from the Piedmont region in the extreme northwest corner of Italy—to convey that character: