the great boston macaron expedition

given that this blog is the namesake of my most beloved pastry, it's basically a crime that i haven't written anything about macarons yet. i'm sorry! there's no excuses, except that there's too much to say. (but at the same time there's really nothing to say--a macaron needs to be experienced, not talked about.)

anyways, that changes today. i'm going to detail one of the most absurd, unhealthy, and immoderate things i've done, foodwise, in recent memory.

i've dubbed it the great macaron expedition of april 2011.

it all started when, unhappily back at school after a food-filled week in france, i bemoaned boston's lack of good macarons. boston, i was convinced, didn't have macarons that could hold a candle up to even just the mediocre ones in paris, not to mention laduree or pierre hermé.

i want you.

admittedly, i had never tried any macarons in boston before making such an assertion, but i was certain that just by virtue of not being french, and not being consumed in a tearoom in saint-germain-des-pres, boston macarons were doomed to taste, feel, and look inferior. (yeah, i'm pretentious, but i'm not the only one. a former classmate/current colleague of mine once said, vis-à-vis gastronomy, "Boston is God's punishment for all of our sins.") 

a macaron is not just about having the right ingredients, or a master pastry chef, or fancy flavours, or the perfect features and proportions and textures--it's about the environment in which they are made and purchased and savoured. boston might have fine patisseries, but it doesn't have the french waiter, or the parisian air so redolent of lavender and freshly-baked bread and love, or...

okay, i might be romanticizing a bit here, but i was confident that boston macarons were going to suck.

my friend sam, a boston native, was eager to prove me wrong. "Boston is the 12th largest city in the world by GDP," he pointed out. (my response: "so?") what it may lack in quality, boston perhaps makes up for in quantity: there were macarons to be had at l.a. burdick's, athan's bakery, tatte fine cookies & cakes, flour bakery, st. emilion macaroon company, etc. 

i was dubious but optimistic when we set out on a trip to gather macarons from every single bakery in boston that offered them. we were going to compare and contrast, record voice notes, and photograph each specimen. we were going to dissect, inspect, and eat them all. in a single sitting. omg. this was scientific, this was delicious, this was disgusting. this was the over-the-top pursuit of the perfect macaron.

we did our research, and headed to the danish pastry house, menton, formaggio kitchen, burdick's, crema cafe, and sportello. i'm getting a sugar high just looking at that list...

lots of places that we thought would stock them ended up macaron-less, and formaggio's was closed by the time we got there, but by the end of the day, we had a trunk filled with enough macarons to feed marie antoinette and her entire retinue.


macaron acquisition in progress.

dessert for two

the loot! as you can see, we didn't just get macarons, but other sweets as well: almond tarts, coconut macaroons, baklava, a giant pistachio-studded meringue from sportello, and other random assorted pastries.


in a vague attempt to be healthy, we decided to make a lots-of-greens dinner before digging into dessert. on the menu: poached eggs with homemade hollandaise, sushi, and salad with strawberries and avocado. domestic goddessy-ness on display right here (just kidding, i did very little of the work).

but of course, what we really want to eat were the macarons. so we began...

up first were these babies from sportello. they look, erm, like i made them, haha. (not a good thing.) lumpy shell, off-center sandwiches, and far, far too crumbly. with each bite, shards of macaron rained down onto the plate, which sort of defeats the air of elegance that is supposed to accompany macaron consumption (admit it, we all eat macarons partially to seem cultured).



sportello's meringue served as a palate cleanser lol. i had fun chipping tiny pieces off this gargantuan block and nibbling on them between macarons.

menton is actually a french restaurant in south boston that presents bite-size macarons to diners after their meals, but with sam's connections, we got a bag to take with us. :)

these menton mini macarons were surprisingly quite nice despite their unconventional diminutiveness. lemon and green tea were my favourites. soft texture, not crumbly, good ratio of filling to cookie. however, i do wish they had been larger--it's hard to really enjoy the taste when they're so tiny.



oh burdick's, you are such a disappointment, from your inexplicably raved-about hot chocolate (which i find far too rich and gag-inducing) to these macarons (flavours were ginger, raspberry, chocolate, citrus, lavender, and pistachio). they sure looked nice--smooth, well-formed, and good texture--but tasted so weak.

to my disappointment, the raspberry didn't taste like raspberry. to my relief, the ginger didn't taste at all like ginger. (i have ginger issues.)

the lavender was nice and lavender-y, probably my favourite of the bunch.

starting to get a headache now...

danish pastry house macarons. nothing of note. the coconut macarons were lovely though!

the aftermath...

as if that weren't enough sugar, we proceeded to bake more cookies using the egg whites we had leftover after making the hollandaise sauce. specifically, coconut meringue cookies! the recipe came from the joy of cooking, aka the bible.



i promise they tasted better than they looked.

a gazillion calories later...

the verdict is: boston should stick to chowder and baked beans. macarons belong decidedly to paris.

is this any surprise?
however, i'm willing to give new york a shot this summer. :)

(all the photos except the first two were taken with sam's badass nikon D700.)