Day 30 - Paris - Making Room for Macaroons

It all started innocently…the hint of delight, a touch of anticipation, a scent of the exotic.  All of this and more surrounded the elusive macaroon leading up to my chocolate travels.  And whilst the macaroon may be elusive in Australia, it certainly isn’t in France and particularly not in Paris.

I hadn’t had a macaroon before however macaroons and I did cross paths in Melbourne as I planned my trip but I had resisted with firm morality and conviction, after all I was going to ‘keep myself’ for Paris.  Although I do admit to a slight indiscretion.  It happened when dining at Vue de Monde, but it just a tiny, tiny, delicate blueberry macaroon hidden amongst the petis fours.  Insignificant really, so small surely it didn’t count.

So my first macaroon encounter coincided with my first day in Paris, in the rather un-salubrious surrounds of Gare de Nord.  Having met friend and travel companion Michael at the airport we were rather peckish after our respective flights.  Passing boloungerie chain Paul I grabbed myself a baguette and Michael a rather large chocolate macaroon.  Both being of somewhat greedy persuasions we tend to share, knowing this means we will get to sample the others choice, and so it was he offered me a bite of said macaroon, which is when I started to learn the wonder of this light but oh so heavy on the hips French delicacy.  Yum!

And so I thought I knew macaroons.  However a few days later we found ourselves wandering around the medieval delight that is the town of Avignon.  Off the beaten path we found ourselves peering into a rather humble looking boloungerie and inside an equally humble and aged man and wife combination.  As we peered, we saw a few lonely macaroons in the cabinet and to be perfectly honest whilst they didn’t look as amazing as those we had spied through fancy Parisian windows something drew us in, call it instinct or whatever may, but the point is we left armed with two small parcels of delight, one chocolate (of course) and one lemon.

We walked until we found a seat beside the medieval wall, in view of modern life trickling past medieval buildings and basking in the last of the autumn ne.  And this is where we had a true macaroon revelation.  We now knew what macaroons are!  An indescribable texture that is light, delicate but at the some time with body and chewyness.  The first thing you notice is the flavour and texture of the biscuit before meeting the slightly contrasting flavour and texture of the cream inside and then they mingle – no they dance, they merge, they become one.  Oh my, these were good.  Sorry Paul, but the benchmark has been seriously raised and so a challenge has been set – to sample and understand the true art of the macaroon.

Interestingly, despite our new self assured and self imposed lofty ideals, we did have one last dalliance with Paul before moving on.  About to board a five hour train from Toulouse to Paris we thought a salad from Paul a much better option to train food; even a train dining car in France is never going to be good.  And somehow with our salad we also ended up with two gigantic macaroons, one chocolate (of course) and the other pistachio.  And just as we experienced a revelation in Avignon, so we experienced another on the train however this time it was what a macaroon should not be.  Overly sweet, overly heavy – so much so that the chocolate one was much more like a brownie than a delicate macaroon.   Of course we ate them but we didn’t revel in them like the treats of Avignon.

The next macaroon adventure came around the corner from our hotel at venerable chocolatier, John Paul Hevin who also makes phenomenal looking cakes, macaroons and of course chocolate.  And as we surveyed the weighty days of heavy French eating (actually four weeks of intense eating for me) we anticipated that surely those tiny tiny macaroons couldn’t be that bad for you.  Any other causes of possible restraint were quickly allayed, for instance it was 11am so surely not too early for a sweet bite.  All guilt excused, we left with two macaroons; chocolate amer/dark (of course) and crème brulee. 

From my limited macaroon pricing knowledge these are pretty normal at 1,45 euro each.  As for the taste, we made use of the iPhone Voice Memos function and recorded the following in the streets of Paris for your culinary reading (I have been warned there may be a few people missing macaroons and living vicariously through our experience…)

The crème brulee was first and we both agree that the texture is amazing.  It is light and not too chewy but still manages to be crisp with body.  Despite these contradictions the thing we cannot get away from is how delicate and lovely these are.  As for flavour, it is filled with a luscious and discreet caramel – no sugary sickliness here, and it has wonderful accents of vanilla that help to soften the overall experience.

As for the chocolate I wish you could hear what we recorded, but imagine a somewhat Australian accent (mine) in Paris exclaiming with genuine enthusiasm and indulgence ‘Oh my God’ and you would be with us.  Michael’s first response, after rolling his eye’s in delight is ‘no comparison’ which is reference to our previous experiences with chocolate macaroons from Paul’s.  He then goes on to explain that the difference is ‘the form’ by which he means the texture.  What we notice is that it doesn’t collapse on you, it does require you to bite into it and it has the same body as the crème brulee but then it just melts.  As for the chocolate, this is a dark chocolate macaroon, and it offers an appropriate hit of chocolate but at no point is it overly sweet or sickly – just pure indulgence!

And on the scale of Shari and Michael macaroon ratings, these were good, very good.  To be fair we don’t really have a rating system yet being so new to the macaroon, but these, along with our discovery in Avignon, become our new benchmark for the many samplings I can assure you we will be having over our seven day stay in Paris.