Madeleines, chips and gravy are not, but the staples of Australian fast food summon Proustian memories at ANU. DVC Marnie Hughes Warrington explains, in the https://missunitwocents.tumblr.com/ new essay in her series on the rebuilding of the university, how the presence of food-trucks now connects ANU’s present to a past when Dolly’s food van fed staff and students and fuelled the foundation of memories triggered presumably by salt and cooking oil. A search for the original Dolly’s van did not deliver but archives and the memories of alumni create “an important message for those of us who work in universities today.”

“They remember the university. They remember wonderful researchers and teachers, as well as cleaners, receptionists and cooks. But they use those memories to connect with other people, and use humorous and often self-deprecating stories to gently prod us out of lines of thought that see only that one discipline, that one project, that one research output, or that one business process. They remind us of our wider value,” she writes.

CMM doubts Proust would have liked Dolly’s chips, but apparently Pauline Hanson did.