The Hemingway Cookbook (8 page)

Rognons Grilled with
Champignons
Omelet with Truffles
Canadian Bacon

Rognons Grilled with Champignons

2
SERVINGS

2 veal kidneys

Pinch of salt

Pepper

4-6 tablespoons melted butter

4 large mushroom caps

Preheat the broiler
.

To prepare the kidneys, peel off the exterior membrane. Slice the kidneys in half, not quite severing
them in two. Trim off any fat and skewer the kidneys on two metal skewers each to keep them flat when grilled. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper, brush liberally with melted butter, and place on a broiling pan.

Clean the mushroom caps with a damp towel. Brush with melted butter, season with salt and pepper to taste, and place on the broiling pan with the kidneys, capside up. Set the pan about 5 inches from the heat and broil the kidneys and mushrooms, basting with butter, for 6 to 8 minutes on each side. Remove the kidneys to a warm serving platter, slice the mushrooms, and place them around the kidneys. Drizzle on any remaining butter.

Omelet with Truffles

When buying truffles, choose carefully, as a purchasing error could cost you literally their weight in silver. The Italian white truffles used in this dish should be pale beige in color and very firm. Buy your truffles shortly before you plan to use them, as they will spoil quickly, which will be evident by their aroma—distinctly similar to a gas leak. Purchase a truffle slicer while you’re at the store, for, if you acquire a taste for these pungent and costly fungi, this tool will be indispensable
.

2
SERVINGS

2 tablespoons butter

1 truffle

Pinch of salt

Pepper

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon Madeira

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Slice the truffle and fry it in the butter for 10 minutes. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper to taste and allow to cool. Break the eggs into a bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the wine, and beat thoroughly. Add the truffles. Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter in a clean skillet. When the butter is sizzling but not yet brown, pour in the eggs. When the omelet begins to set underneath, prick the bottom a few times with a fork and lift to allow the uncooked egg to run through. When the eggs are only slightly runny and creamy on top, fold the omelet in half and slide onto a warm platter. Garnish with more slices of truffle, if desired.

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.