Millions have studied Hemingway through his words, but at the Sixth Annual Hemingway Festival in Moscow people will get to know him through food.
The University of Idaho’s Creative Writing festival will honor Hemingway's legacy, and his connection to Idaho where he lived and died in 1961, with a series of readings, a film and the Hemingway Feast March 3-5, 2015.
This year's feast is imaginatively inspired by food the author have eaten in the various locales of his life. Possibly the famous hunter dined on venison and wild rabbit during his time in Idaho. Fresh seafood was likely on his plate in Spain and France.
The feast, taking place Tuesday, March 3 at the 1912 Center, will be catered by chef Eric Conte of the Moscow restaurant Gnosh, known for its artisan dishes and focus on local ingredients. Dishes on the menu include Wild Rabbit Terrine with Cherry Mostarda, Pickled Pearl Onion and Pistachio Bread Crisps; and Black Truffle Scented Squash Soup with Lump Crab Meat. Tickets for the Hemingway Feast are $85 and can be purchased online or by calling (208) 885-6156.
Hemingway was also fond of drink and the feast will feature wine from Idaho's Colter's Creek Vineyard and Winery in Juliaetta.
Other festival events are free and begin at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 3 at BookPeople, 521 S. Main St., where UI Professor Ron McFarland will read from his new book “Appropriating Hemingway: Using Him as a Fictional Character,” followed by a 3 p.m. screening of the film “Hemingway Adventures of a Young Man,” at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center across the street.
At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 4, University of Idaho Distinguished Visiting Writer Alison Hawthorne Deming will give a reading at the Kenworthy. The festival culminates at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 5, with a reading by NoViolet Bulawayo, winner of the 2014 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for her novel “We Need New Names.” She will be introduced by this year’s Hemingway Fellow Max Eberts, a UI graduate student, who will also read from his work.
The Hemingway Feast is a fundraising event for the Hemingway Fellowship, awarded every year to a third-year fiction student in UI’s MFA Creative Writing Program.
The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award was established in 1976 by the late Mary Hemingway in honor of her husband Ernest Hemingway. The award, which includes an $8,000 cash prize, is given for a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction. The UI’s Creative Writing Program has partnered with the Hemingway Foundation/PEN New England in the annual award and each year the winner visits the University of Idaho to read and meet with students, faculty and the community.
