If only that nice Jewish boy Marcel Proust had grown up not in 19th century Paris but 1980s Golder Green.
Instead of messing around with the dainty nothingness that is a Madeleine when it comes to unleashing sweet memories, he could have been biting into something with rather more substance, not to mention a good lox filling.
For Jewish north Londoners of a certain generation, the late-night smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel was a pretty much de rigueur ending to a Saturday night out.
Whether your teenage search for love had yielded joy or misfortune (with the ratio heavily skewed towards the latter, though hope sprang eternal), you could always depend upon the satiating comfort of a bagful of filled bagels, freshly prepared by the frenetic staff right in front of your hungry eyes before you’d take them home to gorge upon.
