Paris When It's Sweet, Part 3
Ladurée or the Macaron Sisters - who gets the credit for the macaron?
We are heading toward the Seine from our delicious chocolate experience at Debauve & Gallais with the younger members of your group searching for the next directional clue: “a street that’s a boy’s name.” (I know that isn’t a very exciting hint, but I crossed off “he who wore a technicolor dreamcoat” and “the guy who wrestled an angel in the Bible” for being too difficult for modern youth.)
Luckily, the next street we come across bears the name of the boy in question:
We turn right and begin walking toward “the street named after a famous general who wore his hat sideways,” and if they don’t get that, “he then became an Emperor” and if they don’t get that, I just point and say, “Look!” And everyone sees this and forgets about the game:
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We have arrived at the Bonaparte location of the renowned French pastry house, Ladurée. There are several in Paris, with the original being at 16 rue Royale and a super-fancy one on the Champs-Elysées (which also serves as my secret emergency bathroom stop when on the Champs-Elysées - always clean, you don’t have to purchase something, and it has bonus chandeliers).
Like the chocolate pistoles we tried at our last stop, the macaron has its beginnings in a royal story. Remember Marie de Medici, whose pastry chefs were credited with creating the chouquettes we tried in episode 1?
Well, they are also credited with bringing the macaron to France from Italy in the 16h century. (Venetian monasteries had been making them since the 8th century.) However, as often happens when digging around in history, another account (Larousse Gastronomique) claims an alternate origin story. It cites macarons as being the creation of two Carmelite nuns fleeing the French Revolution who became known as the "Macaron Sisters." Which would be a great name for a punk girl-band with Marie-Antoinette wigs.
Importantly, in both of these cases, macarons were just one half of the sandwich-style pastry we know and love today, and there was no special filling or icing.
In 1862, Ladurée Bakery was established in Paris by this guy, Louis-Ernest Ladurée.
In 1930 Louis-Ernest’s younger cousin, Pierre Desfontaines—who obviously wasn’t important enough for a photo—had the idea of joining two macaron shells together with a creamy ganache filling. AND PASTRY HISTORY WAS MADE.
There are other macaron makers now, some of whom produce pastries that are arguably more original or tasty than Ladurée (as my friend Cassi claims Pierre Hermé to be), but for this historical sweet tour, we will stick with the original.
Let’s walk into the shop and peruse the offerings.
The first thing we see in the showcase is this…
which I took at first glance to be soaps. You know what soaps I mean - the ones your mom forbade you from using because they were for guests. But these are not soaps. They are apparently Ladurée’s new gluten-free delicacy, named the Eugenie. I was going to make a gluten joke here, but I know people with celiac disease and am pleased for them that they have a no-gluten pastry option. Nevertheless, the Eugenie will always make me think of soap.
Here is what we came for:
These are the regular choices:
And these are the new special flavors created for the upcoming Olympic events.
On this tour, everyone gets to choose one macaron. Almost all of the kids choose chocolate, although some get raspberry. Almost all the women order passion fruit or caramel. With the men, it’s totally random.
But just this week I discovered the limited edition BRIDGERTON collection, described as “A honey-lemon macaron in the Featherington family colours and a Chai macaron in the Bridgerton family colours.”
Or you can opt for this “honey-lemon pastry, a nod to the bee that is emblematic of the Bridgerton family.”
I have not tried either, but am going to bustle on over to the Champs-Elysées location where they are offering a Bridgerton Tea Time in honor of the Netflix series.
What I see here is that Ladurée not only created what we know as the modern macaron almost 100 years ago, but is staying admirably relevant, celebrating not only the upcoming Olympic festivities, but also the most swoonworthy pro-pastry series on television.
As everybody savors their crispy, flavorful macarons, we exit the shop and continue down the rue Jacob. We stop at the beautiful Place Fürstenberg where I take a photo of you and your family in front of the five-headed lamppost that has been featured in Scorcese’s Age of Innocence, Fantastic Beasts, and the series Call My Agent. Artists also loved the tiny picturesque square, made evident by the museum on the right, the Eugène Delacroix Museum, situated in his old apartment.
We continue on toward our next sugary destination, with the children looking for the street containing the French word for “castle” and with me savoring the lingering bergamot flavor of my favorite macaron - the tea-flavored “Marie-Antoinette.”
See you in our next installment for some sweet treats from Brittany!
I agree that the ones at Pierre Hermé are better. I still dream of a chocolate and salted caramel one I had there many years ago. But I won't say no to Ladurée!