Chekhov's Mistress
The Lofty Madeleine
There are not many foods that carry literary recognition like the madeleine, whose evocation is responsible for the most finite, seeing and beautiful memory wrapped up in In Search of Lost Time. This month (July specifically, owing to the odd out of synch way magazines work) Saveur magazine pays tribute with a brief article recounting history –
“That confection’s name may derive from that of Mary Magdalene, the biblical figure and saint known in France as Marie Madeleine. One of the purported resting places of Mary Magdalene’s remains is the French town of Vézelay, an important stop along the famous Christian pilgrimage route that ends in the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela. In turn, one of the symbols most closely associated with that pilgrimage is the scallop shell.”
Proust may be alluding in In Search of Lost Time to this history when thinking of the many times he had seen madeleines in shop windows not associated with his childhood memories (because he had seen them and not tasted them): “the shapes of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds…”
And design – the scallop shape produces “enticingly crisp edges”
And the experience of eating – “I like to pluck them warm right from their molds, hold one between forefinger and thumb, dip it into my tea…”
To the recipe from the 1966 Larousee gastronomique, which despite its simplicity is more detail than necessary here, containing lots of butter, one and three-quarter cups cake flour, one cup sugar, a tiny bit of baking soda, four eggs and the zest of two lemons. Serves 2 dozen and pshychological clarity.
If you don’t know Saveur, it is not much as far as literal cooking magazines go, but is very much about the experience of eating and cooking and the sense of place and time that food represents. If you’re like me, some food or another is very often the anchor that holds a place and time in your memory – Spanish olives in Madrid; fish tacos on the California Coast, or just the stewed tomatoes my grandmother used to make special for me (indeed, a bit closer to home in this Saveur is the article just before the one on madeleines about buttermilk biscuits). Saveur is not usually literary (although this month they do briefly review Barbara Kingsolver’s foody memoir) it does use food, quite explicitly, as a vehicle for imagination of far away worlds the way a novel might, which is very much why I find it irresistible.
But lest we think of the madeliene itself as something oh so very mystical, Proust says before he connects the pastry to happy memories of his youth in Combray that “It is plain that the truth I am seeking lies not in the cup but in myself.”
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: June 09, 2007
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:0
- Links to this Post: Technorati
