Asparagus (May)

Re-reading Proust. After the madeleine story, he ripples out pictures of childhood Combray, recalls a kitchen discussion about the virtues of asparagus. This unlikely vegetable turns slowly into the perfect mnemonic, proving that anything sensual may serve as a madeleine. I consider how memory is provoked in me. My grandmother’s trays of fruit-mince slice. Her chocolate gingers. Or my mother’s very exotic chow mein, in particular the salty soy sauce. ‘What is patriotism but the love of the good things we ate in our childhood?’ asks Lin Yutang. Asparagus was fine soft, but being Australian we called it ‘sparra’s guts’.

Madeleine (May)

Re-reading Proust. His choice of a cake called Magdalene is a risky tribute, a bold connection. The women-filled pages of Combray Chapter One culminate with the eating of food named, indirectly, after the First Witness to the Resurrection. Marcel says this happened on Sunday mornings “because that day I did not go out before it was time for Mass.” Tribute, maybe; connection, surely; and guide to how memory may be both unwilled and then willed. The madeleine, dipped in tea, is discovery and invocation of the Muse; scallop-shelled cakes, reminder of Saint James, that provide one guide to Proust’s procedure.