Macarons may be one of France’s most recognizable culinary exports, but their history is much messier than the pastel boxes suggest.

In this episode, Caroline and Emily dig into the Italian origins of the macaron and the role Catherine de’ Medici supposedly played in bringing almond cookies to the French court. They explore the roughly 40 regional versions still found around France, including macarons that look nothing like the famous Parisian sandwich cookie.

Then it’s on to Paris and Ladurée, where the macaron evolved into the polished luxury pastry tourists recognize today. Caroline breaks down exactly why macarons are so technically difficult to make, from meringue and macaronage to achieving the elusive “foot.”

Finally, they taste their way through macarons from Pierre Hermé, Lautrec, and Picard. The biggest shock isn’t a rare flavor or an expensive Parisian creation: it’s just how good the frozen supermarket macarons are.

Key Takeaways

• Macarons are generally traced back to Italian almond cookies, with Catherine de’ Medici associated with bringing them to France.
• France has around 40 regional variants, many of which are rustic, undyed and completely unlike the Parisian sandwich macaron.
• Ladurée helped create and popularize the modern Parisian form, rather than inventing the macaron itself.
• Macarons use relatively simple ingredients but require considerable technical precision to make well.
• Macarons actually benefit from aging, as moisture moves from the filling into the shell and creates the desired texture.
• In the tasting, Picard’s frozen macarons perform surprisingly well against much more expensive pâtisserie versions.

Foreign.

Bonjour, Caroline.

We are the real fishwives of Paris.

And today we're going to talk about macaron.

Yeah.

And I think we're going to kind of ruin them for a lot of people.

Look, they're still going to be delicious, but we're definitely in a myth bust.

And we're going to leave you with some good party facts.

I am wine dying Caroline, otherwise known as Caroline Fazeli.

I live in Lyon, been here for seven years, and I a wine expert who owns Leon Wine Tastings.

What about you, Emily?

I am Emily Monaco.

I've been living here in France for 18 years, and I'm a culinary journalist.

And my favorite pastime is ruining stuff for French people.

Angering French people.

Something all Americans have in common.

Mm.

Yes.

And today, specifically, we're going to ruin macaroni, especially for anybody who loved the Sofia Coppola version of Marie Antoinette.

She's there in her Converse, eating macaron.

Ladies, it's not how it happened.

She would not have been able to eat much of anything in most of those whalebone corseted dresses that she was wearing.

Yikes.

But I think macaron also, we're going to ruin for a lot of French people because, like, a lot of things that we associate with France, they're not really all that French.

Oh.

Why is it the case?

The French are all about appropriation, man.

And that you still see that to this day.

It is still socially acceptable in France to dress up as an Indian for Halloween.

Yeah, you see that shit a lot.

So they love that.

They love it.

They do.

The appropriation in this case is a bit less sinister, perhaps.

Still.

Still appropriation.

Macaron are originally ital, actually.

Well, there's a lot of French food that's originally Italian.

Yeah, true.

And I mean, there's a lot of, like, people from the courts moving back and forth across Europe.

Lots of intermarrying, lots of inbreeding.

Yeah, well.

Well, I read Bill Buford's book Heat, which is pre dirt, and that's about Italian cooking.

And one of the claims that he makes is that, like, much of the fine French cuisine really came from Italy.

It's funny because here in Lyon, you know, we call it the culinary capital of France, but it's very Italian, and it always has been.

The Romans were here.

Then Florentine merchants developed the old town.

And even today, there's a lot of Italians in Lyon.

Pizza is, like the most prevalent food that you can get in Lyon.

Really good Italian pizza.

But we love Italian food.

Here.

And.

And macaron specifically.

I mean, if you grew up eating amaretti cookies, that's kind of the ancestor of the macaroni.

I have to say that I think macarons are way better than Amoretti cookies.

So I'm not mad, but I mean, that's kind of the vibe of the French.

Right?

Like that we can get mad because they.

They appropriate, but we can't be too mad because they tend to improve.

They make it better.

They make it better.

They like nice things.

That is one thing I'll give them.

Yeah, they like a fan.

They like something fancy.

And a macaron is nothing if not fancy.

So these ones actually, I mean, we're.

We do have a queen to thank for them, but it's the wrong queen.

Okay, so Queen Catherine of Medici.

Oh, and that's much older.

Can you take us back to those days?

So Catherine came to France, married Henry ii, was in power in a time when there was a lot of, like, religious sort of fuckery where people were like, should we be Catholic?

Should you Protestant burning witches?

Yeah.

And also like, let's kill each other over transubstantiation.

Right.

Um, and so Catherine, when she came over, brought a wealth of Italian pastry chefs with her and brought with her these little cookies that they were calling either amaretti or macaroni, which is confusing, but it's a cookie, not a pasta, and kind of champions this sort of like almond based cookie in France, and, as is often the case, brings them to the court, and the court's all like, ah, these are awesome.

And now they become popular pretty much everywhere.

When Catherine Medici basically brings these over, they kind of disperse out into different parts of France and you get a lot of nuns, typically, who are like, specializing in making versions of macaron.

And I think you used to live somewhere where they are very famous for a version of macaron.

Yes.

When you go to Bordeaux, and you may go to the town of Saint Emilion, which is a fantastic winemaking town that you should definitely visit.

If you're out there, you will find macaron de Saint Emilion, and you will be shocked because they do not look, taste, or really resemble at all what we have in front of us now.

They are not a sandwich cookie.

They are just a cookie.

They are not dyed.

They are stuck on paper.

Like little candies that are stuck on paper.

They're.

They're nice.

They're just like little poofy almond meringues.

You know, they're not.

They don't taste like much.

They're they're delightful, though.

There are about 40 regional variants of macaron in France today.

Most macarons in France are not dyed.

They're rather rustic.

They might sort of be on a sliding scale from like, crunchy, like amaretti, to sort of this, like.

Like you said, like the peel off the paper version.

A little chewy.

Yeah.

And have some actual chunks of almond.

Like some texture.

Right?

Yeah.

And they taste mostly of almond.

All of those versions of macaron are born post almond.

Catherine of Medici, with one exception, which is the macaron de cormerie.

And so this is a bit of an outlier.

It's invented at the tail end of the seven hundreds in the Loire Valley, so near.

Near Tours.

And some people actually think that this was potentially the original macaron that then went to Italy and came back.

French people would say that they would.

And the only reason I'm sharing the story is because I love that these ones stand out a little bit in terms of their shape.

Most macarons are going to be this like, little mound of a cookie.

These ones have a hole in the middle.

Okay.

And the theory is that the monk who was kind of trying to decide what to call them or how to make them stand out, said the next thing he saw, he would see it as a.

Like a sign from God as how he should make them stand out from other cookies.

And a spark from the oven landed on his robe and burned a hole in his cassock.

And he could see his own belly button and the portly monk's navel, which is how it was described in this, like, 17th century poem about it, became the shape of the Calmari macaron.

That sounds pretty gay to me.

Not now.

So for the macaron to evolve from what you saw in Saint Emilion or from this Amoretti kind of style thing, we really do have to go to Paris.

And we're looking, you know, as late as the 17th century, we're still seeing a more Amoretti style macaron.

And it takes another woman to bring us to this beautiful little tea cake we have today.

The arrival of dining out in Paris is like a slow evolution.

And it starts with the very first restaurants kind of around the time of the French Revolution, but it's still not really well perceived for women to dine out.

Well, we are not allowed to be.

In public generally or consume things in public.

Yeah, we definitely can't be eating.

Oh, God, no.

God.

You don't eat.

We can't.

Mary Antoinette certainly didn't.

Oh, God, no.

So we have this woman who basically comes up with the idea of fusing a cafe and a pastry shop.

Okay.

Comes up with the very first tea salon.

And it's her grand nephew who kind of says, okay, I'm gonna take this beautiful cookie and turn it into something a little bit more stylish.

So this is the maison known as l'.

Jeraye.

Oh.

So they actually invented it, ostensibly because La is very famous.

And you know, all the girlies on Instagram, when they go to Paris, they go to La de for their macaron.

And they are very pretty little shops.

They're in the airport now.

They're kind of all over the place.

They're very.

It was not my favorite, I have.

To say, but they're not my favorite either.

No.

I mean, lingerie has definitely become synonymous with it.

You have, like, a beautiful shop, the beautiful original shop on Rue Royale.

There's all these little, like, cherubs painted on the wall dressed as pastry chefs.

Very silly.

Yeah, super silly.

I just don't think they're that great.

I don't like the.

They do a lot of, like, floral ones.

I'm like, I don't want a macaron that tastes like grandma's potpourri, you know?

No, but we do see, thanks to lingerie, this form kind of coming into existence.

And I think they're cute.

They are.

And I think that they are the perfect example, I mean, you know, way more about this than I do of why the French prefer to buy their pastries out rather than bake them at home.

Well, because they're super technical.

That's an interesting subject as well.

And actually, French people got really mad at me when I posted on Instagram about this.

But it is true that French people tend to really have two very different styles of baking.

One is home baking, and one is patisserie.

And home baking is very simple, very unambitious, and not particularly attractive, like a yogurt cake or just.

It's cute, it's whatever.

But it's not what the average American baker, like, someone who's interested in baking in the States, would be a lot more ambitious than a French person.

And part of that is because we have such good pastry everywhere.

It's just so much part of life.

And there are people that are making these really fancy, technical pastries, and so why don't just go out and buy one?

And they're not, you know, they're not cheap, but they're.

They're accessible still.

And macaron are something that are not that easy to do?

Well, that is a fact.

Like, macaron are tough.

Any home baker who's tried them knows it is hard to get it right.

It is hard to get them to rise properly.

It is hard to get the little feet.

And, you know, it is just not the easiest thing to do.

So let's break down how to make macaron.

Yeah, because you've mentioned a couple different things.

Like, you've mentioned the foot here.

Like, this is very.

It's just a few ingredients, right?

It's like egg whites, sugar, almond, and then we've got the filling.

That's it.

Yeah.

It's egg whites, sugar, almond, and like food coloring, you know.

Right.

Often.

And then the filling.

So the flavor in a Parisienne macaron is coming from the.

From the filling, really.

You're not going to add flavor to the shell itself.

The shells are the little cookies.

What they are is egg white, powdered sugar and finely ground almond.

And an ideal macaron cookie will puff up, have a smooth, shiny surface, and then has the foot, which is the kind of crunchy base.

And it should be even.

It's a textural difference.

It's sort of where the cookie rose up and then settled back down.

So the way you make macarons is that you make a meringue.

And there are three different types of meringues.

We have French meringue, which is egg whites and sugar whisked until they form stiff peaks and then baked.

We have Swiss meringue, which uses a bain marie, so you cook the egg whites and the sugar over hot water before you whisk, and it's more stable.

And an Italian meringue, where you make a sugar syrup and you pour it over the egg whites while they're whisking, which, again, it's more stable.

You can make macaron with any of those three, but you can definitely do it with a French meringue.

And then you fold it into a mixture of powdered sugar and ground almonds.

You definitely want to sift those ground almonds.

You want to get rid of any big chunks.

This is all about smoothness.

And you do something called the macaronnage.

And that is basically a working of the battery.

You know, we are so used to working with meringue where we want to be really delicate.

We don't want to fuck with it, so we don't want to lose all that nice air.

But in this, you are kind of smushing.

Like you do it with a spatula, kind of smush the side of the bowl with the spoon or the spatula to almost, like.

I don't know.

I mean, it's almost an emulsification happening between, you know, the fat in the almonds and the meringue.

And so that is something where.

Where you can get it right, you can get it wrong.

You can totally deflate your batter.

You cannot do it enough where it's not shiny.

Like, the foot relies on.

On some of that too.

And so you have to macaronage, right.

And then you're gonna pipe them.

They obviously need to be the same, since it's a sandwich cookie.

And then you bake them.

If you bake them too hot, they will burn, they'll crack.

If you don't bake them enough, you won't get the foot.

So they are technical.

And then after that, you know, you match them up, and you fill them with any kind of buttercream or ganache or jam or anything that you want.

And that's where the fun is, you know, and that's where pastry chefs are having fun, is with the colors, with the decoration of it, and with the fillings.

But the actual macaron shell itself is very.

It's a very simple, simple ingredients, but it is something that is hard to get perfectly.

And so it makes sense, seeing as they're really widely available in France in a variety of different places and price points that I personally don't know any French person who's made macawat home.

No, French people would not make macaw at home.

They are very widely available.

Yeah.

And these, actually, the ones that we have in front of us right now are actually from Picard.

They're frozen.

Yeah.

So Picard is, I mean, this amazing kind of crazy frozen food store that you see all over France.

I love Picard.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

And they're.

I mean, we could do an entire episode just about Picard.

We should do an episode about Picard, actually.

It's the best.

Yeah.

But I mean, they have frozen, like, ingredients.

Like, you can get, like, frozen berries, you can get frozen vegetables.

But they also have, like, really good frozen meals and frozen desserts.

And I remember there was a phase in my life when I was going to dinner parties at French people's houses and everybody was serving the Picard chocolate fondant for dessert because it's just that good, and there's no reason to make it at home.

And honestly, these look great.

They really do.

They're beautiful.

They're lovely.

You've got a lovely, like, frill, that little foot on them.

They look shiny.

They're.

They look even.

They're appetizing.

Like, they're colored, but they're not, like, neon.

Like, sometimes you go into French bakeries, especially, like sort of your run of the mill, like, kind of like whatever bakery, and they'll be like bright, bright, bright neon colors.

I think in the States, we use excessive food coloring as well and everything, and French people find that really unappealing.

And I'm starting to as well.

No, these muted colors do appeal to me.

The pistachio especially, like, pistachios aren't bright green, so.

Please.

No, I mean.

And that's another thing.

When you see bright green pistachio ice cream, you should turn the other way.

That's a different topic for a different day.

Well, so these little P Card ones are, I'm sure, pretty good.

We should taste them.

But I also got some fancy ones for you, Emily.

Oh, my God.

Did you?

Well, actually, that's a lie.

I made you pick up some fancy ones for me in Paris, and then we bought some fancy ones here in the Yale.

So should we whip those out?

Let's whiff them out.

Let's.

Let's do a compare and contrast here.

These are for you.

Ooh, thank you.

You gave me these.

I requested my favorite.

So you got me my favorites, which are from Le Lalo Trec.

And this is a small, like, husband and wife pastry shop chocolatier that actually comes from Clermont Ferrand.

Yeah.

That's not far away from here.

Yeah, Clermont Ferrand, famous as the home of the Michelin brothers.

And these are.

Oops.

Upside down.

Upside down.

Flip it.

And these are.

Ooh, gorgeous.

They're big.

Yeah.

So if we even just do a comparison here.

Yeah, Size comparison.

Size comparison.

They're about twice as big, I would say.

Yeah.

As the Picard ones, which are so little.

Let's look at my Pierre A ones.

So you got these for me in Paris.

I love one specific macaron from Pierre Hermes.

My favorite.

And it is.

I already opened it up.

That's why it looks shitty.

Like this.

The Mogador.

This is my favorite macaron of all time.

And they're.

It's a little.

A little bit smaller.

Yeah, they're maybe, but they're similar sized.

Soletrack.

What's so pretty about the artisan ones?

And one thing I absolutely love when you go buy these in a shop is that they'll arrange them so that you get, like, color contrast.

Like, you've got pink and pink over here.

Like, they'll make sure that the box looks beautiful.

It is just so fun.

It's just pretty, you know?

It's pretty.

Should we taste them?

Let's taste them.

I'm gonna start with the chocolate one from Picard.

I'm gonna do a pistachio.

It's really fucking good.

It's really good.

You know, and for.

For a chocolate macaronol, you're not gonna put food coloring.

You're just gonna put a little cocoa powder in.

But this is.

They're chewy.

That's the thing about a macaronol.

It will have this sort of crackling crust, and then they'll be chewy on the inside.

And then.

And the.

That texture is part of the reason why these days.

And I'm sorry, I know this is an unpopular opinion.

I really don't think lingerie is that exciting anymore.

I mean, they were the big name to make macarons take off.

And actually, Pierre May was the guy who kind of took the lingerie name and turned it into a brand.

I didn't know that.

That he worked for them.

Yeah.

So he used to work for them, and he, you know, brought them a bunch of renown and then went off into his own thing.

And I think he's even better on his own than he was back at lingerie.

But these days, lingerie is pretty industrialized.

Yeah.

I mean, it's huge.

It's at the airport.

Like, it's massive.

Although Pierre May is bigger now, too.

We do have one in the train station.

Yeah.

I mean, and.

And Pierre May is in Japan now.

Like, it's.

I mean, they've expanded.

Oh, okay.

And ever since then, I feel like it's kind of been growing bigger and bigger and bigger and losing out on the quality of things.

But I guess they are, like, so many things actually quite industrial and.

Or something that you make at scale.

Yeah.

You know, but honestly, like, so far, I am really impressed by the picao.

Ones like, this tastes like a fudgy brownie.

Yeah, they're super fudgy.

They're.

I think one thing also, that it's a big pet peeve of mine, is that people always say, oh, my God, this is so good.

It's so fresh.

And not everything needs to be fresh.

And a macaron specifically actually needs to age to get that, like, perfect, like, communication between the fudgy.

That's such a French way of putting it.

The communication.

I know.

That's so funny.

You've Been here too long.

I've been here too long.

Yeah, but that's delicious.

How would you say that in French?

Because that was funny.

That was.

That was you coming out in English with a way of saying something we would never say in English, but that is how a French person would.

Would say it.

I don't even know how I'd say it in French.

It just came to my brain like that.

In English.

Yeah, but there's.

There's.

I'm thinking of it.

There's a phrase that, like.

Yeah, you were definitely playing with there.

I was.

I don't know.

It's conveying moisture from the filling to the shell.

I want to try one of these Lautrecht.

You know what they are?

Okay.

I recognize some of these because I'm a. I'm a fan.

Yeah.

This is the Bora Bora.

That's one of their, like, more famous ones.

It's like tropical fruit and raspberry.

This is their chocolate.

And they're.

I mean, I.

Chocolate's your first, but so it's single origin chocolate, which is nice.

This, I think, is their Molton lemon one.

And I don't.

That might be the vanilla, and then the rest I don't recognize.

I mean, that's probably raspberry.

Probably pistachio.

Yes.

What do you think this is?

Could that be caramel or apple?

That might be coffee.

Or that might be coffee.

I'm gonna try apricot.

Do it.

I'm gonna try.

Is it apricot?

We'll find out.

Mandarin or clementine?

Just orange.

This doesn't have a cream.

It's more of a gel.

It's really good.

Yeah.

This one's lemon.

And they do, like.

They source a lot of their stuff in France.

Like, it's malto lemon, which is, like, the town that has, like, a giant citrus festival in February every year.

I want to go to that so bad.

We should go.

We should definitely go.

And they do, like, floats and stuff.

You need to try your favorite.

I guess this is my favorite.

I'm obsessed with the Mogador.

This is milk chocolate, passion fruit, and this is one of Pierre Hermes signature macaroni.

And I'm obsessed with it.

This filling is so special.

And this one is his other signature, which is the Ispahan.

And I just think it's so.

Kiarame is one of a long line of pastry chefs who claims that pastry and architecture are linked.

So he calls himself an architect of flavor.

There's this guy Kareem, who trained to be an architect, and then is Responsible for a lot of the really traditional, sort of over the top, croquembouche style pastries that we have, which I'm sure we'll talk about at a different episode.

But I just think when you look at these, they're so gorgeous.

And this, the Ispahan is beautiful.

Lychee, rose and raspberry.

I don't like anything that has rose in it.

I don't.

I typically don't.

I like this one generally because it's a little more well balanced.

And then he does often do flavors that are either, like, Japanese inspired or, like, there's something savory and with the sweet.

So he's often, like, veering a little bit more off course than with what you'd get with Picao, where it's like chocolate vanilla, pistachio.

So that's interesting.

I mean, I. I've definitely noticed that there is a resurgence, certainly.

I think PRMA kind of pioneered it of, like, pure vanilla, like real vanilla.

And that was.

I forget what it's called.

It's like extreme vanilla or something.

But it's really good.

Infinitely vanilla.

Infinite vanilla.

Yeah.

And that is.

I know you don't like rose, but.

You should try that.

It is very pretty, I have to say.

Yeah, it's nice.

Still tastes like soap.

But I will say, the reason I like the Lautrec ones even more than the PRMA ones is I think that the Prma ones are a little drier.

Yeah.

And I prefer, like, the fudgy kind of brownie texture.

I mean, honestly, the Picard ones are still nailing it.

The Picard ones are really good.

Yeah.

Points to Picard, guys.

Yeah.

This is great.

If you're listening and you're a student and you don't want to spend €30 on a box of Mecca home, go to Picard.

You can get this massive box for, I don't know, like, eight euros and go to the park and eat your yummy.

Your yummy.

They take seconds to defrost.

Yeah.

And I will say one other thing to bear in mind.

If you are coming to France and you, you know, are interested in macaroni, this is a really good host slash hostess gift.

I don't know how you feel about it.

I personally feel in France that giving a French person a bottle of wine fills me with terror.

I can do it.

But I'm a wine expert, so my husband owns Leon's Best wine shops.

So, yeah, we're good.

Yeah.

On that one.

I personally feel like I would.

I would rarely bring wine to a French person.

No one ever wants to bring wine to me.

So if you're listening and you're my friend, yes, I do want macaron and flowers, please.

Yeah.

And I think that's a.

And they're beautiful.

They're special.

They're a little treat.

If I have a bad day in Paris, I go to Lulutrek, I buy myself a macaron or two.

I've spent less than I would on a fancy coffee, and I feel special.

Exactly.

And if you want to bring.

Go to a friend's house, you bring a little box of seven, and it's a gorgeous little gift.

And you can even choose them, you know, so you can put a little more effort into it than just picking up, you know, something like you can choose a little selection.

And they're.

They're really nice way to finish a meal.

Yeah.

And then when you give them to your French friend, you give them the box, you let them open it, and then you ruin it for them by telling them they're Italian.

And then you also get to eat them together.

Well, this was delicious.

This was delicious.

And now we have.

I'm kind of mad at myself for how much I like the pica ones.

I know, Me too.

They are really.

I think the texture is awesome.

Yeah.

I think the freezing first, these were probably frozen, too, but they.

I don't know.

Maybe it's a size thing or there's just.

I mean, the chocolate one was really,.

Really good, but the pistachio one was excellent.

I'm definitely keeping that in mind.

Yeah.

That is.

Honestly, that's my hot tip for any American listening is go to Picard.

I know.

I'm irritated now.

I feel like I can't.

I'm not going to go to fancy macaron shops anymore.

I'm just going to go to peak out.

Well, the box, it doesn't have the nice box.

The Picard box looks like.

Buy the Pyrame metal box and put your picao macaron in it.

And then you.

That's a good idea.

That's a diabolical idea.

I. I mean, all of my ideas.

Are diabolical, as they should be.

Well, on that note, au revoir, abiento.

It's been great, Emily.

I'll see you the next episode of the Real Fish Wives.

I'll be there.