The Hemingway Cookbook (15 page)

At the urging of Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, Hemingway made his first real excursion to Spain in the summer of 1923 (he had traveled through Spain en route to Paris in 1921). His destination was Pamplona on the nape of the Pyrenees, home to the Fiesta de San Fermín and some of the greatest bullfights in all of Spain. Ernest was immediately captivated by the country, the people, and the spectacle of the bulls. He would later write: “If the people of Spain have one common trait it is pride and if they have another it is common sense and if they have a third it is impracticality.”
¹
It was an alluring combination, one that would draw Hemingway back to Spain again and again for the rest of his life.

He used those early Spanish summers for
The Sun Also Rises
, paying homage to its earthly dominion, celebrating its trout streams and its all-consuming celebrations. In the early 1930s he wrote
Death in the Afternoon
, his treatise on the bullfights and writing and eating and living. In the mid-30s, war swept the country. He watched as the country he loved best was torn apart by civil war. While he watched as a journalist, he was seeing as an artist. Soon after his return he began
For Whom the Bell Tolls
. Much later, very close to the end of his life, he chased his final yesterday, following two of Spain’s greatest matadors in
The Dangerous Summer
.

Spain inspired some of Hemingway’s finest work. The writing is full of the rich colors of the country, the lowing of cows, the feel of solid earth underfoot, and the aromas of saffron and olive oil.

(Author’s note: I would like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Penelope Casas, the author of such extraordinary books on Spanish cuisine as
Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain
and
¡Delicioso!
Upon returning from my first trip to Spain, I first learned to recreate the staples of Spanish cuisine from the pages of her books. Her influence may be seen and tasted in the following pages.)

The Sun Also Rises

July 1925: Duff Twysden, Harold Loeb, Bill Smith, and Hadley and Ernest Hemingway are in Pamplona for the Fiesta de San Fermín. The party seethes and rocks amidst the personal bitterness between Hemingway and Loeb, and by week’s end a rift of legendary dimensions has split the group. The Hemingways travel south to Madrid, he scribbling in blue composition books a tale of destitution and decadence and the “Lost Generation.”
The Sun Also Rises
, Hemingway’s account of his travails in Paris and Spain, was published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1926.

His was a physical world, violent and sensual, draped in the teasingly acrid aroma of drink and death. As accomplices to the drama, we continue our quest to this day for the world and the men
and the life he revealed to us. This world thrives in the restaurants and bars of Spain. Spanish cuisine echoes the Hemingway prose, simple and coarse, subtly concealing great passion and bravado. It reflects the essence of this country, burning hottest in the stone-and-tile country inns and tapas bars of Hemingway’s Spain. Following the author and his characters through Spain is culinary high drama, replete with conflict and climax, creating real-life memories to mirror and complement those once etched in our imaginations by brilliant fiction.

By Hemingways hand, Jake Barnes and Bill Gorton began their Spanish sojourn fishing and hiking around the mountain hamlet of Burguete, 40 kilometers above Pamplona. The Hostal Burguete,
located on the north end of the town’s only road, remains dark and drafty. Haunted by the ghosts of Hemingway and Jake, the rooms of the Hostal are as both men described them: “There were two beds, a washstand, a clothes-chest, and a big, framed steel-engraving of Nuestra Señora de Roncesvalles.”
²
Peek in on the sitting room on the second floor above the Hostal’s quaint dining room, where Jake, Bill and Harris, the fly-tying Brit, played three-handed bridge. True to the spirit of this reclusive region and Hemingway’s genius, each step marks a path deeper into your own imagination and the lives, both real and fabled, that played upon this place. The mountains surrounding Burguete harbor the gray and majestic Monastery at Roncesvalles, refuge for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela. Above the Monastery is the Pass at Ibaneta, where Charlemagne’s nephew Roland met his demise in the climactic battle scenes of
The Song of Roland
.

Hostal Burguete where Hemingway and friends stayed in the early 1920s. This establishment played host to Jake and friends in
The Sun Also Rises
.

The Hostal Burguete offers a classic mountain repast. The regional culinary specialty,
Trucha a la Navarra
is sweet and subdued. A small, fresh trout is cooked beneath a generous cut of bacon, which has basted the fish to indulgence. The sweet, pink flesh is to be picked from the bone and savored slowly. Dinner is followed by a bowl of wild strawberries. The cool brisk and mountain aroma of Burguete veils the meal with a pastoral stillness. A snifter of brandy and a smoke before bed staves off the blustery evening, and the spirit that drew Hemingway to this land is laid bare before us. Nuestra Señora de Roncesvalles bows her assent.

THE MENU

A Pyrenees Country Repast

Sopa de Navarra a la Burguete
Trucha a la Navarra
Wild Strawberries
Hot Rum Punch a la Burguete

Sopa de Navarra a la Burguete
(Hot Vegetable Soup)

This recipe is adapted from the Hostal Burguete, which still serves this soup as a prelude to its tender trout
.

4
SERVINGS

5 cloves garlic, crushed

1 onion, chopped

2 leeks, white parts only, sliced

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1-pound piece cured ham

1 cup dried white beans

Salt

Pepper

1 cup thinly sliced cabbage

1 cup green beans, snapped in half

1 cup frozen peas

In a stockpot, sauté the garlic, onion, and leeks in the olive oil over medium heat until soft. Add 8 cups water and the ham, white beans, and salt and pepper to taste. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for about 2 hours, or until the beans are tender. Add the cabbage and green beans. Cover and simmer for another 20 minutes. Add the peas and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove the ham and serve.

Trucha a la Navarra
(Trout Cooked with Cured Ham)

Trout fishing was a lifelong passion for Hemingway. This dish bestows upon the trout a posthumous honor truly worthy of such a beautiful fish. As you may recall, Hemingway offered a recipe for a similar dish in his
Toronto Star
dispatch “Camping Out”, (see page
9
)
.

There are innumerable recipes for
Trucha a la Navarra.
This is a slightly more domesticated version than Hemingway’s own
.

4
SERVINGS

4 small trout, cleaned and gutted

Several sprigs mint

¾ cup dry white wine

8 thin slices serrano, prosciutto, or cured ham

4 generous slices bacon, thickly cut

Flour for dusting

4 tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Lemon wedges

Stuff the trout with half the mint, pour wine over, and refrigerate, covered, for 2 hours. Remove the mint and discard. Roll 1 mint leaf inside each slice of the cured ham and stuff 2 rolls inside each fish. Heat
the oil in a skillet until hot. Cook the bacon 1 minute on each side, until slightly browned. Remove the bacon from the pan and reserve, leaving the grease. Roll the fish in flour to lightly coat. Increase the heat and fry the fish in the bacon grease and oil for 10 minutes for each inch of thickness, turning once. After turning, place 1 slice bacon on each fish. Serve the fish whole with the bacon on top. Garnish with mint leaves. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve with lemon wedges.

Wild Strawberries

Wild strawberries, the likes of which you will find in a Pyrenees inn, are exceedingly rare in the United States. If you are unable to find the very small, sweet wild strawberries, substitute the smallest, ripest strawberries available. Wash the strawberries in cold water. They need not be hulled. Allow to dry on paper towels. Fill a bowl with strawberries and serve plain
.

Hot Rum Punch a la Burguete

For this soul-warming recipe, visit
The Hemingway Bar
(page
190
)
.

Hemingway brings Jake and Bill from the mountain’s earthly domain down into Pamplona for the Fiesta de San Fermín. They are consumed by swirling and dancing and drums pounding. The Fiesta burns for nine days, from noon on July 6th to midnight on the 14th. From dawn to dawn, there are exuberant celebrations of life and exhilarating confrontations with death. Each morning begins cold and raw, and each is shattered with the Running of the Bulls
(ElEncierro)
from the corrals at Santo Domingo to the Plaza de Toros. Thousands of men (and a few women) prove their bravery before the horns of 2,000-pound brawlers. Each day is filled with parades and song, each afternoon with bullfights and drink and dance. The purity and splendor of Hemingway’s time may seem a little worn, but the venerable spirit of San Fermín thrives to this day. ¡Viva San Fermín!

THE MENU

A Pamplona Fiesta

Bocadilla de Tortilla de Patata
Escabeche de Atún
Bacalao de Pamplona

Amid the insanity of the Fiesta, dining is hardly a deliberate process. For most revelers, sustenance is found within the makeshift food shops and pedestrian bars of the town. Spain’s hearty version of fast food, and a staple product of the Fiesta, is the
bocadilla de tortilla de patata
, or potato omelet sandwich, the national dish of Spain. Hardly glamorous, the
tortilla
is a taste of basic, traditional cuisine. As with Spain itself, the
tortilla
charms with its simplicity and subtle blend of elemental tastes. One must not miss the
tortilla
, as it above all else tastes of Spain.

Bocadilla de Tortilla de Patata
(Potato Omelet Sandwich)

Few places haunt you when you are away as Pamplona during the San Fermín. With senses blurred all week, you depart only to find a sight, sound, or smell that evokes the madness of the Fiesta. It is a delicious torture, and you may indulge yourself in it each time you recreate the
Tortilla de Patata.
The blend of oil and onions in a starchy omelet brings back the sleep-soaked damp and chilled mornings and wild, endless nights of
la fiesta más intensa.

4
SERVINGS

2 cups oil (mixture of olive and vegetable)

2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced very thin

2 medium onions, finely chopped

4 large eggs

2 tablespoons water

Salt

4 sub rolls

Heat 2 cups oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the potatoes and onions in layers. Try to separate the potato slices as much as possible when adding them to the oil. Cook over low or medium heat. The oil should only reach a slow boil. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs lightly, adding the water and salt to taste. Don’t overbeat the eggs, as an overbeaten albumen results in a less-than-perfect texture.