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FOOD AND DRINK

Proust’s Madeleine cakes started life as toast

Uncovered manuscripts suggest the famous little French sponge cakes known as "Madeleines", that were made famous by writer Marcel Proust, actually began life as toasted bread.

Proust's Madeleine cakes started life as toast
Madeleines started life as toast, would you believe. Photo: AFP

The “madeleines” — little French sponge cakes — that writer Marcel Proust made famous in his book “In Search of Lost Time” might actually first have been toasted bread, according to uncovered manuscripts published in France on Thursday.

A first draft of Proust's huge novel dating from 1907 had the author reminiscing not about madeleines — a sensory trigger for a childhood memory about his aunt — but about toasted bread mixed with honey.

A second draft, the manuscripts showed, had the evocative edible as a biscotto, a hard biscuit.

It was only in the third draft that Proust wrote that he had bitten into a soft little madeleine.

A Paris publishing house, Saint-Peres, showed the shifting food reference in three handwritten manuscripts by Proust that it will print into a special three-part notebook set for retail.

The madeleine anecdote is considered one of the key passages in “In Search of Lost Time” (known as “A la recherche du temps perdu” in French) and underlines the work's major theme of involuntary memory, in which an experience such as an aroma or a taste unexpectedly unlocks a past recollection.

Proust is considered one of France's most influential authors of the 20th century and the French today still use the expression “Proust's madeleine” to refer to a sensory cue that triggers a memory.

“These three never-before-seen notebooks allow one to retrace the literary genealogy of the most emblematic moment of the Proustian universe,” the Saint-Peres company said in a statement.

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FOOD AND DRINK

Cheese in numbers: France’s obsession with fromage

From cheese types to the amount eaten per year, via cheese favourites - here's a look at how France really feels about fromage.

Cheese in numbers: France’s obsession with fromage

March 27th is the Journée nationale du fromage in France – so here are a few facts about the delicious dairy delicacy.

246

Charles de Gaulle famously once asked of governing France: “How can anyone govern a country with 246 varieties of cheese?”.

His numbers were wrong. Producers in France make closer to 1,000 varieties of cheese – and some have estimated that figure could be pushed up as high as 1,600.

8

The number of cheese ‘families’ in France. A good cheeseboard in France is generally considered to consist of at least three ‘families’ – a soft cheese, a hard cheese and either a blue or a goat’s cheese. Remember, too, an odd number of fromages on a platter is better than an even number, according from cheese etiquettists

READ ALSO France Facts: There are eight cheese families in France

2.5

About how long – in years – it would take you to try every cheese made in France, if you tried a new variety every day. Life goals. 

95

The percentage of people in France who say they eat cheese at least once a week, spending seven percent of their weekly food bill on it.

READ ALSO Best Briehaviour: Your guide to French cheese etiquette

40

Two-fifths of French people say they eat cheese every day

57

The amount of cheese produced, in kilogrammes, in France every second, according to this website, which has a counter to show you how fast that really is. It’s estimated that 1.8 million tonnes of cheese are produced in France every year.

27

The French consume, on average, a whopping 27 kilogrammes of cheese per person per year.

READ ALSO Fonduegate: Why customer service is different in France

3

The three most popular cheeses in France, based on sales, are Emmental, Camembert, and Raclette – followed by mozzarella, goat’s cheese, Comté and Coulommiers.

63

Some 63 cheeses have been awarded the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée status, which means they can only be produced in a certain region.

1

France has – or at least soon will have – one dedicated cheese museum. 

READ ALSO Three things to know about the new Paris cheese museum

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