Madeleine is a small French-style sponge cake, also known as shell cake, which at first glance is hard to think that it will become a history-changing food. In fact, there was no war around Madeleine, and no revolution began. However, this simple cake in the shape of a sail shell has had a huge impact not only in France, but also in the literary history of the whole world. Because of the French literary hero Marcel. In Proust's masterpiece "Remembrance of the Watery Years", there is a famous interlude about Madeleine. When Proust met Madeleine, he wrote a long literary masterpiece, producing the modern novel as we know it now, and pushing this little shellcake onto the stage of history. In this way, its impact is reasonable.
It is rumored that shell cake is a small family-style snack in the French city of Comelsi. In 1730, the gourmand King Reguchengski of Poland went into exile in Mersi. One day, the personal chef he brought slipped away from the dessert, when a maid temporarily roasted her small snack and sent it out for emergency, but she did not expect to be very happy with Reguchengsky, so she named the small snack the maid's name Madeleines, which is also the real name of the shell cake.
Madeleine's little story
"The spoonful of tea with the dregs of the snack touched my palate and suddenly shocked me, and I noticed that I had changed a lot" - Marcel Proust, "Remembrance of the Watery Years"
One of the reasons Madeleine's story is so famous is that it appears at the beginning of volume 1 of all 7 volumes of Remembrance of The Age of Water. Many people read this 3,000-page novel because it is the highest masterpiece of French literature, but not many people can read it to the end. However, this short story is the main part of the novel and is also something that guides one of the themes. In our lives, the role of memory and the experience of appealing to feelings evoke memories. In this case, the protagonist (known as Marcel, apparently based on Proust himself) eats Madeleine, soaked in black tea, and has a wonderful feeling. At first, he didn't know what that feeling was, but then he suddenly realized that the smell of black tea mixed with cake dregs opened the door to the memories he had hidden as a child. If not, he said, there was a time in his life when things would be long forgotten.
■ Young Proust, photographed before the publication of his masterpiece.
Starting with a seemingly insignificant vignette, memories continue to emerge, the narrator "I" as the main body, telling several stories, in the real experience of objective and subjective, reality and illusion, the past memories will also be stimulated by more feelings and revived. Proust's stream-of-consciousness literary approach, the exploration of subtle feelings in the hearts of the characters, and the observation of the emotional trends of the characters made Proust detached from the forms used in 19th-century plot novels, making "Like Water Years" the beginning of stream-of-consciousness literature, influencing later modernist writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Proust's "Remembrance of The Age of Water" has a very high status in the history of literature, and is the last fruit, the last miracle, and the last great milestone of the traditional French novel art.
Still, it's incredible to think about it now, so why would a small snack like Madeleine make such a big fuss? It makes sense to think that the Madeleine cake is a very simple little sponge cake, belonging to a cake called "Genoise", genoese cake name derived from the Italian city of Genoa. This type of cake is very common in France, made with so-called "synonyms". To make the cake feel light after baking, stir the batter vigorously to fill the dough with air, then place the dough in a scallop-shaped baking mold and bake it in the oven, sometimes with lemon and almond flavors.
It is said that Proust changed the type of cake in the author's mouth several times, that is, the vignette is not true. Autobiographical. However, in the awakened memory, the fictional city of Compalais as a background is based on the French Irie of France, where Proust lived for a long time as a child. In 1971, the town of Irieux officially changed its name to Irieux-Gomberle to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Proust's birth. I also want to evoke the memories of the enthusiastic fans who followed Proust's footsteps, and remind them of Proust's relationship with the town
Lamington
Australians may not feel much for Madeleine cake, but if They mention Lamington, it may allow them to experience Proustian moments of shock. Lamington is a small square, chocolate-sauced, coconut-flour-sprinkled sponge cake that is said to come from Lambington, who was Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. The exact reason is unclear.