HEMINGWAY'S FAVOURITE LUNCH

IN SEARCH OF LOST SAUSAGES.

        

  Brasserie Lipp.

  "There were few people in the brasserie when I sat down on the bench against the wall with the mirror in back and a table in front. The waiter asked if I wanted beer. I asked for a distingue, the big glass mug that held a liter, and for potato salad. The beer was very cold and wonderful to drink. The pommes a l'huile were firm and marinated and the olive oil delicious. I ground black pepper over the potatoes and moistened the bread in the olive oil. After the first heavy draft of beer, I drank and ate very slowly. When the pommes a l'huile were gone I ordered another serving and a cervelas. This was a sausage like a heavy frankfurter split in two and covered with a special mustard sauce."

           Ernest Hemingway. A MOVEABLE FEAST.

           A visitor asked me recently if Brasserie Lipp still served the meal Hemingway so enjoyed. The short answer is "They don't", at least not in a form he would recognise. The cervelas he knew, a speciality of Swiss cuisine, resembled a fat hot dog but, instead of being filled predominantly with pork, contained a large proportion of beef brains, while its distinctive red skin was sourced from the intestines of zebu cattle from Brazil. It could be served cold, but most people preferred it boiled.

           By the time I heard of the cervelas, its name had been corrupted into "saveloy" and its filling into the catalogue of mystery meats peculiar to that shady end of the culinary spectrum; as the received wisdom suggests, laws and sausages are two things into the manufacture of which one should never enquire. And the skins….well, I can't remember the last time I even saw a zebu, Brazilian or otherwise.

Zebu.

           The first time I ordered the dish at Lipp, almost twenty years ago, they served me a single bratwurst, split, face down on a plate, with a bowl of potato salad on the side. The German sausage was approximately the same size as a cervelas, but more meaty, and - of special interest to the bean-counters - best served grilled: no need to keep a pot of them simmering on the back burner, particularly since only tourists ordered the dish.           

           As for its accompaniment, the potatoes Hemingway described would have been prepared as Jean Renoir described in his classic The Rules of the Game. When someone jeers at the nouveau riche host of the house party, the chef replies "So he may be, but he chewed me out recently over a potato salad. You know - or maybe you don't - that for it to be any good, you pour white wine over the potatoes when they're boiling hot. But Celestin was afraid of getting burned. Well, the boss sensed right off he hadn't done it. Say what you like, but that's what I call a real gentleman."

           One can't see a modern chef de cuisine taking the trouble to marinate the potatoes in white wine. With restaurants feeling the pinch of high rents and a shortage of trained staff, time is of the essence. Dishes with frozen or freeze-dried ingredients trump anything that requires cooking to order, while boil-in-a-bag servings take care of everything else.  

           It needed some searching to even discover whether Lipp still served the  dish. It's there, but only just. No longer among the plats, they've exiled it to the appetizers as Cervelas remoulade: a cold sliced saveloy in vinaigrette. No "special mustard sauce". And no potatoes - ironic, since Hemingway regarded them as the main dish, and the sausage as something extra. Anyway, Cervelas remoulade will cost you Euros 9.90, plus service and tax; enough to live on for a week in your day, Ernie.  But the beer is still good. And you’d probably need it.

Cervelas Remoulade.