Macaroons/macarons from Nectar Desserts in Inglewood.
While working on our March Food Issue, the Avenue editorial team found themselves in the middle of a heated food debate. (That is a heated debate rather than a debate about heated food, and perhaps "heated" is overstating the case a bit.) Regardless, what do you call the delicate French cookies available in a rainbow of hues at Nectar Desserts and Yann Haute Patisserie? Macaroons (rhymes with Saskatoon) or macarons (rhymes with "get the phone" said in a very bad imitation of a French accent)?
The French, and their culinary vocabulary supporters, say macarons and are decidedly against the double oo, which they say describes instead the blobby coconut treats, not these beautiful delicacies.
But we are not French, we said, they may be French macaroons, but macaroons they are because our trusty Canadian Oxford dictionary does not recognize such a word as macaron. We put this in the same category of culinary word debate as flan — does this word refer to a fruit tart or a custard or both. "Both!" we declared, and so you will find macaroons, not macarons, described in the March issue.
However, while ours certainly is to question why, ours is not to stick to a position that is not working. Much like the French, we give in and have a glass of wine when the battle becomes untennable. And so, we relent.
We received a number of messages on this point, plus our resident style guru finds the word macaron amusing. So, macaron it is from here on.
The perhaps more important debate about whether these lovely cookies can ever take the place of cupcakes in our hearts and dessert plates continues to rage.
Post new comment