A madeleine is traditionally eaten in France for breakfast, with coffee, and it's claim to cultural fame is that it is eaten by Marcel Proust at the start of his trilogy A La R e t o u r Du Temps Perdu, translated as (recalling or returning to) Memories of Times Past.
I ate a madeleine for the first time at breakfast at a small hotel in the Loire valley, not knowing I was a short distance from the factory, which you can see from the packet is on Contres which is Centre, the centre of France.
I was given the Madeleine on the French stand at the World Travel Market exhibition at Excel in London in November 2015. Now, I am surprised but pleased to see there is no need to travel all the way to France to enjoy a Madeleine. You can order them online from Waitrose (their online website is confusingly called Ocado), as well as buying madeleines from Tesco and Sainsbury's.
The cakes cost is currently (November 2015) about £2 for 7 pieces. The little sponges come in two flavours, plain and chocolate.
Of course there is something very satisfying about eating a Madeleine in France.
If you are interested in Marcel Proust, you can visit, eat in or stay in the Grand Hotel in C a b o u r g where he lived from 1907 to 1914, and follow a Proust trail nearby around the clifftop coastal road where plaques at various points relate to Marcel Proust. Proust is known as the father of the modern French novel.
It's handy to have a reminder of some French words, translating the nutritional information on the packet.
arome - aroma / flavour
b e u r r e - butter
blé - wheat
bonne - good
energie - energy
farine - flour
f r a i s - fresh
nutrionnelles - nutritional
o e u f s - eggs
poudre - powder
sucres - sugars
http://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/articles/cabourg-387-2.html (Grand Hotel, C a b o u r g, Normandy.)
(Spell check note: The spell checker tried to turn C a b o u r g into cyborg and R e t o u r into detour. That is why I have needed to insert spaces.)
If you are interested in French, I write a post on French language two or three times a week. Please follow my blogs, like me on Facebook and link to me on LinkedIn.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, teacher of English and French.
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