It's small, colorful, crunchy, chewy, French, and it's about to take America by storm
What is it?
Only one “o” separates the sticky-sweet coconut balls called macaroons from macarons, but it’s not the Passover treat that has Gossip Girls and American food fanatics buzzing. Macarons are traditionally high-end French confections that look like whoopie pies on acid — incredibly saturated with color, their delicate outer shells are glossy and crunchy, with domed tops and flat bottoms (known as “the foot”). Basically crisp meringues of sweetened egg whites and almond flour, the cookies are sandwiched around a ganache, buttercream, or a fruit puree.
They come in a dozens of fruity, nutty and sweet flavors — raspberry, lemon, pistachio, chocolate and caramel are common — and even some highly unconventional ones: foie gras, white truffle, rose, violet. Macaron bakers pride themselves on fashioning distinctive colors and sometimes dustings of powders to distinguish their flavors, and their visual appeal is hard to deny. Check out these photographs to see the variety of their bright, saturated colors, which can look like an intense array of exotic fruits.
But it’s the texture of the macaron that makes it truly unique. The crunch is subtle — unlike, say, a potato chip — and the fillings’ moisture helps soften the interior of the meringue to a chewiness. When you bite into it, the shell cracks and dissolves on your tongue, you chew, the filling melts, and the flavors announce themselves.
Where did it come from?
The origins of the macaron aren’t entirely clear — they may have been invented in Renaissance Italy monks — and are believed to have been introduced to France by the pastry chefs of Catherine de Medici in the 16th century. But in any case, what is currently known as a macaron (with the crisp-chewy shell and soft filling) was invented by Pierre Defontaines in the 1930s.
For decades the only flavors of macaron were chocolate, vanilla, coffee and raspberry — that is, until Pierre Herme, a French pastry wiz kid who apprenticed under famed patissier Gaston Lenotre at the tender age of 14, became the head patissier at Fauchon, the upscale Parisian patisserie, in the late 1980s. At Fauchon, he pioneered bold and new flavors — like rose, olive oil and ketchup — and in the ’90s collaborated with Laduree — France’s best-known macaron-makers — to expand their flavor repertoire. Released seasonally, like haute couture, new flavors get their own lines. (At Laduree, spring 2009 was Lily-of-the-Valley.)
Since then, France has witnessed a macaron explosion that has, in the last several years, gone international. The desserts have increasingly popped up in culinary and non-culinary magazines (like O), been prominently featured in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” became minor plot points on the CW’s “Gossip Girl,” and in high-end American restaurants, have become a popular mignardise (a post-dessert treat to enjoy with your coffee … and to take the edge off getting the check).
Who’s eating it?
The fact that macarons are extremely difficult to make well (something as subtle as the humidity in your kitchen can ruin them) and have a short window where they’re best — after the filling has softened the meringue, but before the cookie dries out — means that they have always been a painstaking, small-batch product, and expensive. (If you understand French, or, erm, Quebecois, you can watch this helpful demonstration on how to make them.)
But as the Wall Street Journal pointed out this morning, the macaron is now getting a populist makeover. More and more coffee shops and grocery stores are selling versions of the treat on both sides of the Atlantic. Laduree recently opened a stall in London’s Harrod’s department store, and since 2007, French McDonald’s have been selling them cheaply at McCafes, their in-restaurant cafes (the macarons are sent to the restaurants frozen) — a fact that has many purists disappointed that they’re not made or treated with the care that makes them special. In the U.S., Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and even Starbucks have begun offering packaged versions of the macarons.
But, even in their diminished form, the macaron is likely headed for a popular explosion. As YumSugar’s Susannah Chen point out in the Wall Street Journal, it has the makings of the next cupcake craze: “They come in different colors and flavors, and they’re indulgent, but they won’t wreck your calorie count for the day.”
Longevity rating: 10 (out of 10)
Clearly, history is on the macarons’ side — and if confectioners can figure out how to do them right on a big scale, it’s only a matter of time before America is completely invaded by their rainbow of sweet and crunchy deliciousness.
The facts: Beloved by raw food enthusiasts, agave syrup has become one of the easiest alternative sweeteners to find in grocery stores. It’s derived from the Mexican succulent plant agave, of which there are several varieties. It has to be processed to become sweet, and depending on that process, it can be comparable in composition to the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. True, agave has a low glycemic index — meaning it releases glucose into the blood stream at a slower rate than refined sugar — so it can help keep blood sugar levels stable. Eating agave as a “healthy” alternative to sugar, however, is pointless; the two have the same number of calories, no nutritional value whatsoever, and, even though it doesn’t spike blood sugar, the primary sugar in agave, fructose, has been linked to cancer and cholesterol problems when consumed in large quantities.
The facts: Brown rice syrup is what happens when cooked brown rice meets barley malt enzymes. The sweetness comes from starchy complex carbohydrates, which take a couple of hours to digest. As a result, the glucose is released gradually into the bloodstream, providing a steady supply of energy rather than the rush — and crash — of cane sugar. Plus, the syrup maintains some of the nutrients in brown rice, like protein, so it’s not a total nutritional bust like most sweeteners are.
The facts: Stevia’s not technically a sugar; it’s extracted from a sweet herb of the same name. Therefore it has no calories and doesn’t raise blood sugar. Though the FDA labeled it a “dangerous food additive” in 1991 after an “anonymous industry complaint” (read: shadowy figures in lab coats), stevia is now back on the market as a “dietary supplement.” In the rest of the world, particularly Japan, widespread use of stevia has been going on for decades.
The facts: Date sugar is so low-tech it’s kind of funny — it’s just dehydrated dates that have been ground into a powder. That means it’s completely unprocessed and retains all the nutrients in dates. It’s high in fiber and protein, and has lots of vitamins and minerals like iron and potassium. Plus, it qualifies as a raw food. It still contains sucrose, fructose and glucose, so it’s not a good alternative for diabetics or people looking to control their blood sugar.
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