Thursday, October 15, 2009

Perfection is a plane ride away



I was lucky enough to be invited to France last year, during which time I found myself with a few free days in Paris. It was winter, and it rained every day. When I wasn't taking refuge in a museum, I wandered the streets in search of foods that the French do better than us. I think we've got the sandwich nailed, but the apple falls far from the tree in the macarons that I've tried here in San Diego.

I had heard of these elusive treats, not to be confused with the macaroon, through a Gourmet article that came out a few months before the trip. As I recall from reading the article that accompanied the recipe, the gist was that you can really only get good ones in France, no matter how you may try in your kitchen at home. It was made clear that these are cookies worth having. When I stumbled upon them in Paris, I bought a couple.

Fortunately that was early in the trip. Every day after that, I bought more to try. At a few dollars apiece, I questioned my sanity periodically. But when I bit into those wonderful, ethereal cookies, doubt of my mental acuity fled. After my first macaron, I noticed them everywhere. Standards like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry were nestled unassumingly next to more exotic offerings such as rose water and lavender, and enticing flavor combinations such as hazlenut cookie with chocolate filling. I wanted to try them all.

Despite their pervasiveness, it wasn't until I stumbled upon the Pierre Herme shop that I fully appreciated the gravity of the macaron in Paris. Mirrors and bright lights showcased the thousands of macarons made fresh that day, each perfectly round, perfectly sandwiched. They were neatly arranged in glass cases, with more flavor varieties than I cared to count. I nervously considered my options and waited to be served by the very attractive and well-dressed men and women behind the counter (were they in suits? I can't remember now), agog at the rich Parisians buying hundreds of euros worth of macarons.

I ordered one.

I ducked out of the surreal shop and stepped onto the evening sidewalk, busy with rush-hour pedestrians. There was a break in the rain. I ate my five dollar cookie right there. The chaos of rushing bodies swirled around me, rain threatened over me, cars splashed next to me. But all I sensed was the impossibly thin crunchy shell of the cookie giving way to a chewy interior and meeting the sweet, jammy filling that was just waiting there all along for its moment to shine.

No, I haven't tried to make these. I'm sticking close to Betty Crocker for my holiday baking. I'd rather this taste lie in wait as a food memory. I look forward to revisiting it again someday.