Finca Vigía Foundation In The Press
The Finca Vigía Preservation Project
By JENNY PHILLIPS Presented May 2005 in Havana, Cuba My introduction to Finca Vigía came in early 2001 when I arrived in Cuba with friends. We had come to listen to music and explore Havana and the Cuban countryside. But we found something quite different. A quick...
No Clean, Well-lighted Place
Preservation, Jan-Feb 2005 The beloved Cuban Residence of Ernest Hemingway—Finca Vigía or Lookout Farm—sits on a hilltop overlooking the Carribbean Sea, about 12 miles east of Havana. Since Hemingway's death in 1961, the deterioration of the house has been gradual but...
Bid to Fix Up Hemingway’s ‘Finca’ Hits Snags
NPR—WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY, November 28, 2004 By LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO A house once owned by the writer Ernest Hemingway is a tourist attraction in Cuba. But it has long been in a state of disrepair. Americans who want to restore the house are blocked by the U.S....
The Bell Tolls For Hemingway Home
THE BOSTON GLOBE, November 9, 2004 By THOMAS D. HERMAN ONE DAY in February 1926 an unknown American expatriate writer walked out of a New York snowstorm and into history. An important piece of that history is now in danger of being lost forever, caught in the...
An Unmoveable Feast of Hemingway History Struggles to Survive
THE NEW YORK TIMES, October 14, 2004 By GINGER THOMPSON SAN FRANCISCO DE PAULA, Cuba – Ernest Hemingway's work made him a citizen of the world. But he made this tiny community of artisans on the outskirts of Havana his only real home. Now caretakers are fighting to...
Decay Closes In On Papa’s Refuge
THE TORONTO STAR, June 6, 2004 Hot sun, salt air, hurricanes take toll on Finca Vigía Plans afoot to save Hemingway house and '50s artefacts. Finca Vigía—The venerable typewriter is gone from the small, sunlit study where Ernest Hemingway composed his masterpiece, The...
Cache of Hemingway Papers Found
Cache of Hemingway Papers Found: Admirers Seek to Preserve Cuban Hoard by Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, The Boston Globe September 22, 2003 WASHINGTON - A treasure trove of lost Ernest Hemingway manuscripts, personal photographs, and love letters has been seen by...
Cuba and U.S. Group Collaborate On Preserving Newly Uncovered Hemingway Manuscripts
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, November 12, 2002 By ALEXANDRA OLSON A rejected epilogue for Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," a 1941 letter from Ingrid Bergman and more than 20 letters from the 19-year-old Italian contessa he was in love with are among thousands of...
Unlocking the Hidden Hemingway: Discovery in Cuban Basement Offers ‘Missing Piece’ of Author’s Life
THE WASHINGTON POST, October 20, 2002 By KEVIN SULLIVAN, Washington Post Foreign Service They pushed open the door to the secret basement and shed new light on Ernest Hemingway's life. In the musty darkness and tropical humidity, surrounded by the writer's shotguns...
Cache Of Hemingway Papers Found Admirers Seek To Preserve Cuban Hoard
THE BOSTON GLOBE, September 22, 2002 By GLEN JOHNSON, Globe Staff WASHINGTON – A treasure trove of lost Ernest Hemingway manuscripts, personal photographs, and love letters has been seen by outsiders for the first time in decades in the basement of his Cuban villa,...
Havana To Unlock Hemingway Papers
THE NEW YORK TIMES, September 21, 2002 By KATE ZERNIKE The Cuban government has agreed to allow access to a trove of Ernest Hemingway's papers that experts say promises to illuminate the period in which he wrote some of his most significant works. The collection,...
A Joint Cuban-American Project To Preserve Hemingway’s Papers
THE HEMINGWAY REVIEW, VOL. 22, NO. 1, FALL 2002 JENNY PHILLIPS, Boston, Massachusetts The wooden cellar door slid open with a creak and a groan. We picked our way down the steep steps and bent to avoid hitting our heads on the low ceiling. After a year of delicate...
PAPA’S FAVORITE HAMBURGER
Hemingway’s Hamburger, photo by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
In 2013, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan wrote an article for the Paris Review about the “treasure trove of lists, recipes, and writings [in Finca Vigía collection] that intimately illustrate his appetites and involvement in temporal minutiae.” The article included a recipe about Papa’s favorite hamburger.
RECIPE
1 lb. ground lean beef
2 cloves, minced garlic
2 little green onions, finely chopped
1 heaping teaspoon, India relish
2 tablespoons, capers
1 heaping teaspoon, Spice Islands sage
Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning — ½ teaspoon
Spice Islands Mei Yen Powder* — ½ teaspoon
1 egg, beaten in a cup with a fork
About one third cup dry red or white wine.
1 tablespoon cooking oil
Break up the meat with a fork and scatter the garlic, onion and dry seasonings over it, then mix them into the meat with a fork or your fingers. Let the bowl of meat sit out of the icebox for ten or fifteen minutes while you set the table and make the salad. Add the relish, capers, everything else including wine and let the meat sit, quietly marinating, for another ten minutes if possible. Now make four fat, juicy patties with your hands. The patties should be an inch thick, and soft in texture but not runny. Have the oil in your frying-pan hot but not smoking when you drop in the patties and then turn the heat down and fry the burgers about four minutes. Take the pan off the burner and turn the heat high again. Flip the burgers over, put the pan back on the hot fire, then after one minute, turn the heat down again and cook another three minutes. Both sides of the burgers should be crispy brown and the middle pink and juicy.*
*Spice Islands discontinued its production of Mei Yen Powder. Here’s how to recreate it:
Dry Mix: 9 parts salt + 9 parts sugar + 2 parts MSG
If a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon Mei Yen Powder, use 2/3 tsp of the dry recipe (above) mixed with 1/8 tsp of soy sauce.