Madelaine

[Jinmyo]

The ubiqitous example of Proust and those madelaines. Can't stand the spongey things. But led me to wondering:

Food, memory, language:

Some chefs play with memory and language (Keller's sandwich and soup, the famous salmon ice cream cone). Others foam at the edges of the "new" (gold leaf on scorpions). Then there's the conveyer built of the known dropping down the maw of the expecting.

So, the nub, the gist, even the very point of my question:

Do memory, expectation, nostagia affect how you think about what to cook, serve, or eat?

[bourdain]

More and more every day...As I get older and (dare I say) more sentimental--as the world becomes increasingly uncertain--it feels good to look back. Nothing jogs the memory--transports one back to a specific time and place--more powerfully than smell and flavor. So, memory--and an understanding of human nature--of real people's wants and needs--is a really strong asset for a chef--and I think its one of the things that really distinguishes Keller from the rest. At Les Halles, of course, it's straight, unvarnished nostalgia all the way. No irony about it. We dupe--as exacly as possible--the stuff that the owners (and I--to a great extent) grew up eating. I think the casual diner would be astonished at the lengths we go to to get it right. I do not know a lot of other bistro brasseries where they go to the trouble and expense of using haricot de Tarbe for cassoulet. The amounts of pork blood, pork skin, calves and pig's feet, duck fat we use is out of another time--believe me. Few brasseries have the stones to actually use rumsteak for steak frites as we do--preferring to use the more US-friendly sirloin. You don't see a lot of pieds cochon and rillettes de porc on NY menus (though you do from time to time)--and you have never eaten game so high as the lievre (stinky hare) during wild game month--unless you're hanging it yourself. I vividly recall wiping plates carefully when I first arrived at LH, applying sauce delicately--and being told--"Non, non.we don't do that here. Rustic! Rustic!"

[John Whiting]

I do not know a lot of other bistro brasseries where they go to the trouble and expense of using haricot de Tarbe for cassoulet.

You're probably aware that a preponderance of the beans served in cassoulets by "authentic" restaurants in Southwest France come from Argentina.