Towards the end of an adventurous life, tired and sick, Ernest Hemingway took his life as many of his characters did. For many, he is one of the few mythical authors of contemporary literature. But Ernest Hemingway was for his mother, from the day he was born, the brightness of the sun and the song of the robins.
A couple of years ago, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston presented for the first time on the Internet the contents of five books made up of notes that Grace Hall Hemingway, the writer’s mother, had begun to write to document the early years of the man who would become one of the greatest contemporary writers.
Ernest Hemingway is famous for his books and his love for fishing, drinking, and hunting, but writer and journalist Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan came across a peculiar article published in the Boston Globe, about the digitization of Ernest Hemingway’s documents. Among all the data she could find in the extensive compendium of notes, what caught her attention was a recipe to prepare hamburgers as Clarence Hemingway, father of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, liked them.
The journalist, acting as a detective, became so passionate about the story that she discovered that Hemingway’s widow, Mary, published the same recipe in 1966 in the sixth volume of the Women’s Day Encyclopedia of Cooking. It was half a kilo of meat the amount of protein that was intended only to prepare two servings of this dish.
Ernest Hemingway’s Burger Recipe:
Ingredients:
- 454 grams (1 pound) of lean ground beef
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 green onions, finely chopped
- 1 heaping teaspoon of Indian seasoning
- 2 tablespoons capers
- 1 heaping teaspoon of Salvia Spice Islands
- ½ teaspoon Spice Islands Beau Monde seasoning
- ½ teaspoon Spice Islands Mei Yen seasoning powder
- 1 egg beaten in a cup with a fork
- 1/3 cup dry red wine or white wine
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
Instructions:
- Break up the meat with a fork and scatter the garlic, onion, and dried seasonings over it. Then mix them into the meat with a fork or your fingers. Let the meat dish sit out of the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes while you set the table and make the salad.
- Add the relish, capers, and everything else including the wine, and let the meat marinate for about 10 minutes, if possible.
- Now, make the patties with your hands. They should be about 1 inch thick with a soft texture, without being runny. Heat the oil in the frying pan, after putting the meatballs to fry lower the heat, and leave them for about four minutes.
- Take the pan off the stove and turn the heat back to high again. Turn the burgers over and then back again; after one minute, lower the heat again and cook for another three minutes. Both sides of the patties should be crispy brown and the middle pink and juicy.
When in doubt and difficulty in obtaining Spice Islands seasoning, which Mei Yen says was discontinued several years ago, an article was published in which it can be recreated with:
- 9 tablespoons salt
- 9 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons MSG (Monosodium Glutamate)
If the recipe calls for a teaspoon of Mei Yen powder to be used, 2/3 teaspoon of the above powder and 1/8 teaspoon of soy sauce should be substituted.
This story was originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
