We hear the phrase a la, as in a la mode", or a la financiere. But the article is always la, which is feminine, regardless of the noun. Financiere, in this instance, is presumably masculine, so shouldn’t it be au financiere?
Moving beyond the world of cuisine we see a la meaning like or in a manner similar to that of. One biographer of the Beatles said that in the early days they wore greased-back hair and sideburns a la Presley.
So what gives? Was a la mode the original phrase, and the feminine word mode left out, but understood in all the other expressions?
That’s the way I heard it explained. I think I first read that in a column by William Safire, but the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary also says it’s an abbreviation of à la mode.
Just to clarify a few things: the article is feminine because the noun is feminine. Articles and adjective always agree in gender and number with their noun. although my dictionary doesn’t have the word financière, I’d assume it’s feminine. Generally speaking, French words ending in -ière are feminine while thoese ending in -ier are masculine.
As you noted, for masculine words, a le is contracted to au. You do hear this in phrases like au gratin.
You gotta understand - there are two sorts of written French. There’s French written by people who actually know the language and French as butchered by people who don’t know the language.
In real French, the phrase would be au when used with a masculine noun, such as in au gratin as opposed to the bar’brous construction a la gratin.
A la mode as far as ice cream on pie and cake and such originally meant “in the fashion” or “in the style”, meaning the new fashion or style, or at least the current trend. When the phrase was carried over the Atlantic the sense of “with ice cream” was kept but the literal meaning was lost.