This immortal "madeleine (French scalloped sponge cake) & tea" episode started one of twentieth century's literary masterpieces "Remembrance of Things Past" a seven volume, more than 4000 pages long epic by Marcel Proust, which also fetched him the Nobel Prize.
This above mentioned episode reminded Proust of the cake which his aunt Leonie used to offer to him long ago & reanimates his impressions of a French town Combray with its infinite nuances & gradations of colour.
Such triggering of memories by sensual impressions were also found in Ruskin & Chateaubriand. Dickens' contemporary, Wilkie Collins wrote a story "A Terribly Strange Bed" in which he notes that "The moonlight shining into the room reminded me of a certain moonlit night in England & every incident of the drive came back into my remembrance."
Also Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist..." is transformed by his moment of vision of the girl on the beach. Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain" is transformed by his vision as he lies swooning in the snow as Marcel is transformed by the taste of the madeleine dipped in tea.
Proust was a "possessive son" in his childhood, getting attacks of asthma, when his mother missed coming to say goodnight at his bedtimes. After being a "social lion" as a young man, he became a recluse, in his soundproof, darkened study & created his masterpiece.
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