[Ads-l] Madeleine (Magdelaine), g=?utf-8?Q?=C3=A2teau=2C_?=pastry, cake, cookie, sauce...

[Stephen Goranson]

OED (online) madeleine, n. was most recently modified in December, 2021.

The Etymology section states “the reason for the designation is unknown” and mentions a proposed source, a cook, Madeleine Paulnier or Paumier [also elsewhere given as Paulmier; refs. in Wartburg, Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2. 20, n. 2], but “whose existence is dubious,” correcting a 1989 OED assessment as “prob. F. name of Madeleine Paulmier, 19th-c. French pastry-cook.”
OED’s earliest bracketed French use is from 1767.
At Hathi Trust and Gallica is a 1755 use, Gâteaux à la Madeleine, in Les soupers de la cour….tome III, p. 282.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6463215w/f309.image.r=madeleine
OED’s earliest English use is from 1829 [and bracketed French/English, 1827]
At archive.org is an 1824 English translation of a French cookbook by Beauvilliers, The Art of French Cookery; in the index, “cake madeleine,” though perhaps OED would bracket it too.
[I am warming up to attempt comment on Elizabeth Schrader and Joan E. Taylor, The Meaning of “Magdalene”: A Review of Literary Evidence, Journal of Biblical Literature, 140.4, December, 2021, 751-773.]
Stephen Goranson
Co-author, Origin of Kibosh
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/





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