The Macaroon, a Small Cookie with a Long Road

A narrow street in old Rome. A market loud with voices, the ring of metal on metal, the warm breath of bread from the ovens drifting over the stalls. Under all of it runs one sweet smell that does not belong to the bread. It is the first rumor of what we now call the macaroon.

Macaroons are the small jokers of the dessert table. They are little, they look harmless, and they arrive with more flavor than their size should allow. They sit like coconut crowns or tiny hats, their base swinging between ground almonds and coconut, and often they hold a center of soft ganache or buttercream.

The trail runs back a long way. The macaroon is believed to have first appeared in the Middle East. It travelled west with the reach of the Roman Empire, and it took its name from the Italian word “maccherone,” meaning paste. The first recipe kept to honey and ground almonds, simple and a little foreign.

France, however, had plans for this plain cookie. In the country of wine and courtship the macaroon changed its clothes and came out the polished sweet we know today. Ground almonds, sugar and egg whites became the shell, a rich soft filling went inside, and the French macaroon caught on fast. By the 18th century it had stopped being only a dessert. It was a sign of wealth, set out on the tables of the finest houses in French society.

The years kept walking, and the macaroon kept walking with them. It went from the smart pastry shops along the boulevards of Paris to the holiday tables of the American South, and it changed as it went. Here came the coconut macaroon, an American favorite, and then the classic French macaron, filled with anything from ganache to buttercream.

Nobody, it seems, has found the edge of what this cookie will carry. It has been flavored with chocolate, with coffee, with raspberry. It has worn sprinkles, curls of chocolate and thin slices of bright fruit. A thing this small should not travel so far. It does, and it keeps its shape.