The Matuto and the Proust Madalenas

The Matuto has many “Proust Magdalenas”. In fact, we all have our “Proust Magdalenas – punctuates the Matuto.“ That’s it ” – the kind wife of Matuto, Dona Sirlei, has reacted -“ Who are these Madalenas!? ” Alto and then stop the ball!

The Matuto explains: In the first volume of “In Search of Lost Time”, Marcel Proust reports, as the flavor of “Magdalene” – a molded, lemon butter -shaped cupcake and lemon zest – soaked in tea, almost magical, transports him to his childhood in Combray. Through a trivial experience – the taste of a Magdalene dipped in tea – the author illustrates how the senses have the power to evoke memories that were buried in the subconscious. Matuto knows a safe source that scholars call this phenomenon “involuntary memory” because it refers to the brain’s ability to access memories without apparent effort. Contrary to voluntary memory, which requires concentration.

The Matuto does not resist transcribing this bright part of Proust’s masterpiece: “She then had one of these small and rollers called“ Magdalene ”, which seem to have been shaped in the striated shell of a Vieira. And soon, dripped by the taciturn day and the next day’s perspective, I took a spoon of tea to the mouth where I had a piece of tea. Madalena. But at the same time that this sip, mixed with the crumbs of the cake, touched me in the sky of the mouth, widely, attentive to me. Filling in a precious essence; or before, this essence was not in me, it was myself. The Madelena’s little piece that my aunt Léonie gave me on Sundays in Combray (because that day I did not leave before Mass time), when I was going to give her good days, after plunging him into her tea or Tilia infusion. (In, “In Search of Lost Time”, by Marcel Proust, editions Water Clock – Translation by Pedro Tamen, p. 52 and 54)

Now, in the olfactory and gustative memory of the Matuto dwelling images of Grandma Guida… and his carrot cake. It was the Matuto just a milk, a brat there, when Grandma Guida made her famous carrot cake, wet, wet. The militant was delighted with that texture. He declined the day and fell at night, outside the cold was a whip… and Grandma Guida arrived wrapped in cloths and plastic bags. Laughs at the table, the stumbling of the cutlery, the scent of coffee Mokambo…

Each time the Matuto sees or smells of a homemade cake, he is immediately transported to that childhood moment… And even Dona Sirlei helps in this “involuntary memory” by making, very voluntarily, a beautiful chocolate cake that fills with her aroma every corner of the “House of Pontes”. It will be ingested, dipped, soaked, well wet, in a black tea, to the English, with a dairy rag – reveals the matuto.