The Hemingway Cookbook (17 page)

Note on buying octopus:
If you are lucky enough to live near an excellent fish market, you may be able to purchase fresh octopus. Otherwise, try a local Portuguese market and buy frozen. And, although you didn’t hear it from me, and I’ll deny it if confronted, the canned octopus in olive oil that you can get in your local supermarket is an adequate substitute in this dish. Substitute 2 or 3 cans for the fresh octopus.

Patatas Alioli
(Potatoes in Garlic Mayonnaise)

8
TO
10
SERVINGS

1 pound potatoes

¾ cup garlic mayonnaise (recipe follows)

3 cloves garlic, mashed to a paste or very finely chopped

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

Salt

Peel the potatoes and cut them into ½-inch chunks. Boil in water to cover until tender yet firm, about 15 minutes. Rinse in cold water and allow to cool to room temperature.

Combine the mayonnaise, garlic, and parsley. Fold in the potatoes. Season with salt to taste. Or prepare ahead and refrigerate, then return to room temperature before serving.

Alioli
(Garlic Mayonnaise)

1¼
CUP
(
ENOUGH FOR
P
ATATAS
A
LIOLI
RECIPE
)

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk

¼ teaspoon Dijon-style mustard

Dash of salt

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Mixture of½ cup olive oil and ½ cup vegetable or canola oil

Place in the bowl of a food processor the whole egg, egg yolk, mustard, salt, and lemon juice. Blend for a few seconds. With the motor running, pour in the oil very gradually and continue beating until thickened and silky.

Pimientos

Pimientos, or roasted red peppers, are a simple, magnificent, and elemental part of any tapas feast. Set them out alone on a plate or use as a colorful and aromatic garnish to paella, tortillas, or other tapas
.

4
TO
6
SERVINGS

2 red bell peppers

Preheat the oven to 400° F

Place the peppers on an ungreased baking pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Turn the peppers and bake for another 15 minutes, or until the skins are black. Remove the peppers and place them in a closed brown paper bag until cool. When cool, remove the peppers from the bag. The blackened skins will virtually fall off the syrupy, tart flesh. Core and seed the peppers. Cut into thin strips and serve liberally throughout the meal.

Canapé of Fried Fish

Just up the street from Portaletas is another San Sebastián institution: Bar Alkalar. Indulge in their fried fish tapa: a generous chunk of fried hake, served on slices of baguette lightly fried in oil and swathed with alioli
.

6
TO
8
SERVINGS

1 pound hake or other firm, white fish

Salt

¾ cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup cornmeal

Oil for frying

2 large eggs, slightly beaten

Cut the fish into 1½-inch square pieces. Lightly salt the fish. Combine the flour and cornmeal in a bowl. Roll the fish pieces in the flour and cornmeal mixture to cover. Pour the oil into a skillet to about ½inch. Heat the oil. Coat fish in egg wash, then fry until brown, turning once. Drain the fish on paper towels. Serve on fried bread slices with mayonnaise.

This simple canapé can be garnished with pimientos, or even cured ham, but the Bar Alkalar serves them plain, and there are no complaints.

Madrid Beckons

An early morning swim, breakfast of a
bocadilla de tortilla
and a cup of the sweet viscous lava that passes as hot chocolate in Spain, and the road to Madrid unfolds to the south. As Brett once beckoned for Jake to rescue her in Madrid, so does the city itself now call us to indulge in its intemperate demeanor. A long bus ride along a flat ribbon of road through burnt bronze plains, and it is as if all that is Spain passes before you. The land’s blaring fanfare announces your slow descent into Madrid: the living, breathing distilled essence of the Spanish heart.

In dynamic culinary swaths and broad cultural strokes, Madrid paints the whole of Spanish life on a sprawling urban canvas. With boundless charge day melts into evening, and evening fights the good fight only to be replaced, with regretful obligation, by morning. There is so much, and only in Madrid is there enough time to enjoy. The Spanish treasure their great city, and they make time. As Ernest wrote, “Nobody goes to bed in Madrid until they have killed the night.”
⁸

July in Madrid is hot. An early morning stroll to the Plaza Mayor and the bountiful and cool Market of San Miguel, and the heat arrives. A bustling café offers a respite of coffee and
churros
, a sweet and rich fried dough. The coffee, as you may have noticed, bears no pretense whatsoever of delicacy. As you will no doubt appreciate when you awake tomorrow afternoon, Spanish coffee is potent, for it assumes that you have had a rough night.

The day is reserved for the Prado museum and the grandeur of Goya, Velásquez, and El Greco. Housed in an only slightly grandiose building, the art speaks for itself, making the Prado one of the most accessible and personable big museums in the world. A stroll amidst the statues of Retiro Park, and thoughts once again turn to food.

In
The Garden of Eden
, David and Catherine Bourne visit Madrid and the Prado, afterwards dining at a restaurant in an old, stone-walled building. They sip glasses of manzanilla and eat jamon serrano, spicy sausage, anchovies, and garlic olives. Afterward they enjoy peppery gazpacho and drink Valdepenas wine from a large pitcher.

Garlic Olives

1 cup small, green olives

3 cloves garlic, crushed

Virgin olive oil or brine, to cover

Combine the olives and garlic in a bowl or glass jar. Add enough olive oil or brine to cover. Marinate for several hours before using. Olives will keep for up to 1 month at room temperature or 3 months in the refrigerator.

These olives may also be used in a Super Montgomery (see page
189
).

Gazpacho

It came in a large bowl with ice floating with the slices of crisp cucumber, tomato, garlic bread, green and red peppers, and the coarsely peppered liquid that tasted lightly of oil and vinegar.
⁹

This bright-flavored, chilled soup was originally prepared in Spain for the farm workers as they left to work in the fields. It becomes a hearty meal in itself when served with wine and firm, crusty bread. You will often find gazpacho prepared as a thin blend of vegetables in a tomato base. In fact, it is served this way in the Hostal Burguete today, and it is exquisite. I for one cannot imagine a barrel-chested young Ernest Hemingway sitting down and sipping that broth. Like the farm workers themselves gazpacho must be rugged
.

6
SERVINGS

2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped, and 3 cloves garlic, peeled only

½ green bell pepper, coarsely chopped

½ red bell pepper, coarsely chopped

½ yellow onion, coarsely chopped

5 very ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 medium cucumber, peeled and chopped, and 1 medium cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced

¼ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

½ teaspoon cumin

1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce

1 cup ice water

2 cups tomato juice

Salt

Pepper

Garlic bread croutons (see below)

Combine all of the ingredients, except the whole garlic cloves and the croutons. Taste repeatedly and adjust seasoning to your own taste. I often add another ½ cucumber, finely chopped, and a splash more Tabasco.

Chill well, pour into bowls, and garnish with croutons.

For the croutons, slice French bread thin, lightly fry on both sides in olive oil, then rub both sides of the bread with the whole cloves of garlic. You can either cube the bread or leave it whole, and place a few pieces in each bowl.

For Jake and Brett in
The Sun Also Rises
, dining in Madrid means only Casa Botín, the oldest continuous restaurant in the world. The Antigua Casa Sobrino de Botín, opened in 1725, was forever a Hemingway favorite, so much so that the next restaurant up the street has written on its awning (in English), “Ernest Hemingway never ate here.” Casa Botín may be full of tourists, but its long history before Don Ernesto secured a culinary tradition of country fare that remains unmatched. The wine flows hearty and deep beside a giant brick oven offering suckling pig and roast lamb. In Casa Botín you truly feast. Hemingway, infamous for hosting marathon lunches and dinners throughout Spain, wouldn’t have it any other way. We may leave Casa Botín just before midnight, yet the evening in Madrid is just beginning.

Casa Botín, Madrid, Spain.

THE MENU

Dinner at Casa Botín

Cochinillo Asado

Wine
Rioja Alta

Cochinillo Asado
(Roast Suckling Pig)

We lunched up-stairs at Botín’s. It’s one of the best restaurants in the world. We had roast young suckling pig and drank rioja alta. Brett did not eat much. She never ate much. I ate a very big meal and drank three bottles of rioja alta.
¹⁰

This recipe is adapted from Casa Botín in Madrid, the oldest restaurant in the world. I would like to thank Antonio Gonzalez II, and everyone at Botín, for their hospitality and charm
.

6
SERVINGS

1 8- to 10-pound suckling pig

½ pound lard

Salt

Pepper

2-3 sprigs fresh parsley

1 sprig fresh thyme

2 bay leaves

2 cloves garlic

1 small onion

1 cup dry white wine

2½ cups water

Preheat the oven to 450° F

Have your butcher butterfly the pig, or do it yourself by opening the underside, leaving the backbone and the head intact. Rub the skin with the lard and season with salt and pepper. Place the pig in a large clay casserole, skinside down. Chop the herbs, garlic, and onion and spread evenly across the body of the pig. Pour the wine and water into the casserole. Place the casserole in the oven and cook for 45 minutes. Drain off the extra liquid and melted fat and roast for another 45 minutes. Turn the pig over, skinside up, and roast for another 30 to 45 minutes, or until golden and crunchy. Pour off the juice and serve it in a gravy boat. Pig may be accompanied with a salad or surrounded with roasted potatoes.

Alternative:
To truly recreate the wood-fired stoves of Botín’s, use an outdoor grill and add pine or ash wood chips to the coals.

Madrid is a city, indeed Spain a country, of endless adventure. Each turn in the road finds succulent diversions for all of the senses. In Madrid your head swims with memories and dreamy landscapes of food and wine. The claybrown plains and stormy dark seas. The mountains and churches, of equal antiquity. In the early hours in Madrid, the world celebrates this land. The gift of Spain shall not go unappreciated. It is in good hands.

For Whom, the Bell Tolls

In July 1936, the civil war began in Spain, pitting the right-wing Nationalist forces led by Francisco Franco against the Republicans, also known as Loyalists. Initially Hemingway remained neutral. Eventually, through the urging of many people, including journalist and would-be third wife Martha Gellhorn, Ernest came to see the Loyalists as the lesser of two evils. Much more clearly he saw the conflict in Spain as a prelude to war across Europe, and in February 1937, he left for his first of four tours as war correspondent for the
North American Newspaper Alliance
(NANA).