A tale of a cookie recipe

Here in Birch Bay, Washington, in a small plaza called Birch Bay Square is a grocery store. The store has an in-store bakery that makes the largest coconut macaroons I have ever seen. I enjoy coconut macaroons and have been known to buy as many as a half dozen when making a stop at Wheat Montana during a trip. But the notion of a giant macaroon isn’t particularly enticing to me. Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to cookies. And in the case of a coconut macaroon, I fear bigger means that the texture of crunchy exterior and creamy interior is probably not balanced. However, I haven’t tasted one and I have no plans to buy one anytime soon.

I consider myself to be a bit of a cookie snob. I’m not proud of it. I confess that it is a sign of privilege to prefer one cookie above another. Part of the pleasure of eating, however, are the stories of the foods we consume. At our church we are collecting recipes and stories together. I find the stories to be compelling and worth collecting and there are some recipes that are definitely linked to stories that are rich in tradition and meaning.

Today, for my journal, a bit of the story behind the story, if you will. To begin with, I don’t know the story behind coconut macaroons. I do know one thing, however. Macaroons aren’t French. I took three years of college French and although my accent is terrible, I’m pretty sure that there is no “ooh” sound in French. The closest sound in French is an “aw” sound, pronounced as in the English word, “gone.” It is critical in the story of cookies because there is a French cookie called a Macaron.

A Macron is not a macaroon. Macaroons are made with coconut. Macrons are flavored with almonds. When we traveled in France, way back in 1978, I had the opportunity to taste a Paris Macron. It had a gentle almond flavor, but what was most noticeable was the thin layer of jam or glacé between the two cookie halves. As I remember the cookies from long ago, I recall bright colors that aren’t quite natural, such as pink and green and yellow, the products of food coloring. The cookies made enough of an impression to create a memory for me, but they don’t come close to the most amazing things we ate during our visit to France.

Searching for recipes for macaroons, however, I discovered that a Paris Macaron isn’t the original French cookie. This news has set me on a bit of a quest. However, it turns out that I have no chance of obtaining the recipe for the original French Macaron, despite the fact that the president of France, Emmanuel Macron has a name similar to the famous cookie.

One story is that Catherine de’ Medici introduced the macaron to the tables of the royal court of France in the 16the Century, but that is a legend and it is likely that the cookies originated much earlier. In fact etymologists say that the word macaron comes from Italian. Chances are the cookie traveled through Italy before becoming popular in France. It is probably not possible to trace the origins of the cookie, which are now lost in the annals of history.

The cookie that has caught my attention is not the original, but it has ancient roots and many traditions. More importantly, it has a great story. Macarons des Sœurs were created by two 18th Century nuns, Marguerite Gaillot and Marie Morlot, who lived in an abbey in the small town of Nancy, in Lorraine, in the north-east of France, on the bank of the river Meurthe. In 1792, a decree abolished certain religious congregations and the sisters were expelled from the abby. The nuns took refuge with a local doctor and supported themselves by making and selling macarons. Since that time Macarons des Sœurs have been sold in Nancy without interruption and the recipe has remained a closely guarded secret. When Marguerite died, Marie passed the secret recipe to her niece with the admonition that she should give it to no one until she was unable to make the cookies and then, and only then, she should pass the recipe on to only one person. The recipe should never be written down, only shared orally to one person at a time. The recipe remained in the family for generations and eventually was passed to the Aptel family and from them to Jean-Marie Genot in 1991, who passed the secret of the macaron to his son Nicholas in 2000.

You can only obtain genuine Macarons des Sœurs from one bakery in the world, Mason des Sœurs Macarons, in Nancy, France.

Chances are pretty slim of my ever having one of those cookies to give it a taste, but if I ever do, I will relish the opportunity. In a way, however, I don’t need the cookie to share its joy, because I know the story. And sometimes the story is enough.

The world is filled with church cookbooks. We have quite a few ourselves, with recipes collected by congregations in at least four states. There are some really good recipes in those cookbooks, too. But the project at our church has a different goal than producing yet another cookbook, which I suppose could include my recipe for coconut macaroons. Our total is to collect the stories behind the recipes. Feasting on our stories is every bit as pleasurable as feasting on food. The stories have just begun to arrive. I have been formatting them for display in the church, so I get to read all of them. It has already been a treat. I have learned stories of traditions passed down for generations in families, of recipes born of a shortage of time and resources, and of recipes that provide connections in places where none might otherwise exist. I’m pretty sure that there will be plenty of romance and even a bit of intrigue.

I think it is likely that this is not the last journal entry I will make with a story of food.

Made in RapidWeaver