It resembles a picnic; it’s recreational, but it’s lunch on a trout-fishing excursion on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In Ernest Hemingway’s story “Big Two-Hearted River, Part Two,” Nick Adams breaks to have a sandwich. Nick is depressed and trying desperately to get over his war memories and a nagging injury. Fishing for trout in a cold stream is a metaphor for Nick’s chance to revive his sagging sense of self and future. The lunch is an onion sandwich dipped in the cold stream. It’s a simple operation to make an onion sandwich, and Hemingway knew it because it was among his favorites. This is how Nick makes it: “In the pack, he found a big onion. He sliced it in two and peeled the silky outer skin. Then he cut one half into slices and made onion sandwiches. He wrapped them in oiled paper and buttoned them in the other pocket of his khaki shirt.”
Featured Image: Adam Marshal Smith. Big Two-Heated River. Screenplay by Zander Smith (2021). Nick Adams is portrayed by Chase Giacomo
See Ernest Hemingway. “Big Two-Hearted River, Part Two,” in In Our Time. New York, Bibi & Liveright, 1925