Macaroon or macaron?

On our various visits to food courts, shopping centres and tourist hot spots in the last week I have noticed one common denominator - macaroons - the pretty looking biscuits that are very fashionable and pretty expensive. You don't buy a packet of them - you buy one at a time. Always beautifully displayed and mostly in pretty pastel colours. Why I wondered is there this passion for macaroons?

So first I tried the trusty Wikipedia where I learnt, or rather, was reminded, that these are not actually macaroons. Below is a macaroon - and seeing the picture gave me another blast from the past.

We used to have these coconut flavoured biscuit/cookie/cake things when I was a child. They were made with desiccated coconut, and they are indeed called macaroons. Here is a recipe. The things we now call macaroons are actually macarons. Because they are French.

"A macaron (/ˌmɑːkəˈrɒn/ mah-kə-rohn;[1] French pronunciation: [makaʁɔ̃]) is a sweet meringue-based confection made with egg white, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food colouring. The macaron is commonly filled with ganache, buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. The name is derived from the italian word macarone, maccarone or maccherone, the meringue." Wikipedia

And then you read on and find that actually they are not French, but Italian and date back to the 8th century in Venice. Catherine de Medici brought them, along with a whole host of other things, to France in the 16th century when she married the French king. In the 18th century some nuns in France made them popular, but they were not found, as today, as two biscuits sandwiched together until 1830. Now you can get them in just about every flavour you can imagine - sweet and savoury. End of history lesson.

Though this does not really tell me why they are so popular now - although I then found a reference somewhere to Zumbo - the famous Australian dessert maker, who, it seems, popularised them here. Whoever did it - they are everywhere. Every coffee shop in Australia - and there must be thousands and thousands will probably have its own version of a macaroon. I wonder how long they will stay in fashion?

And it seems that you can even find them decorated on top - the ones shown here have an Indian kind of look - though it is not usual for them to be iced - just made in different colours. If you want to find a recipe just google it and you will be overwhelmed.

Personally I have never made them, and I'm not sure I have ever even tasted one. Until I decided to do this article I'm not sure I even realised that they were a kind of meringue. I think I thought they were a variation of those biscuits called melting moments. Donna Hay has a recipe for these. I think these are a kind of shortbread biscuit, but you can see the similarity.