Food and memory: Mention ‘Proust’s madeleines’ like a pro

Food is more than just nutrients. Food conjures up memories and reveals who we are and who we are not. What we eat is a medium for personal recollection and collective identity. Marcel Proust, the great French author, is famous for connecting food and memory with madeleines, “those squat plump little cakes.” We certainly have him to thank for those little packages of “petite French cakes” at every Starbucks checkout.

Let’s turn to the renowned passage where the fleeting cookie inspires  a recollection of the narrator’s childhood in the village of Combray, France, in Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” Dipping the scalloped butter cake-cookie in tea, Proust is stirred with vivid memories:

“She (Marcel’s mother) sent for one of those squat plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines,’ which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell … I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses.

And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray … when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane …. and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and garden alike, from my cup of tea.”

The encounter with the madeleine was magical for Proust and sparked his writing of seven volumes of fictionalized recollections. While we are not asking you to write that much, try writing a short vignette based on your personal madeleine. Some stories may conjure up sweet, sour or bittersweet memories. 

To start, reflect on a food that is filled with emotional, autobiographical and symbolic meaning to you, such as Proust’s tiny cake. It may be a holiday meal or an after-school packaged snack. Try to taste it before writing. Describe it and the images and memories it conjures up. Is it homemade or commercial? Is it positive, negative or in between (bittersweet)? Is it a demographic marker of gender, race, religion, generation or class? Does eating it make you feel part of a group, or excluded?

Food memories are often nostalgic and related to growing up. A taste of crunchy waffles or grandmother’s apple pie may conjure up thoughts of Dad’s weekend brunch or special Sunday dinners shared after church or in the fall. A recollection of tamales, café con leche or Philadelphia cheesecake invokes ethnic or regional markers, and the memories may serve to preserve identities affected by migration and mobility. Particular foods spark powerful personal recollections and associations, revealing a key concept of food studies: We are what we ate. And to add the linguistic component, words help to recollect and convey these memories.

For additional reading of the creative use of food memories, try Molly Wizenberg’s “A Homemade Life,” Ruth Reichl’s “Tender at the Bone,” Sharon Boorstin’s “Let Us Eat Cake: Adventures in Food and Friendship,” and Mark Winegardner’s “We Are What We Ate: 24 Memories of Food.”