Ladurée :: Macaron Goyave
By Paris Pâtisseries in Laduree, Pastry Reviews
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Finally. It’s with this macaron that I’ve finally discovered a French word far less elegant than its English counterpart. While we have words like lime and blueberry, they have citron vert and myrtille to outdo us. Even when we have fairly cool words, like raspberry and licorice, they come up with the equivalent or better framboise and réglisse. When it comes to guava though, they merely have . . . goyave. But it was probably totally intentional on their part – “a give” to us, like throwing a board game for a young child to help give them some encouragement.
Even though the French have been kind enough to toss us English-speakers a word as graceless as Leonardo DiCaprio, crica 1991, reprising his role as Luke on ABC’s Growing Pains – I didn’t imagine Ladurée would offer-up anything short complete macaron refinity for their Macaron Goyave. So what was the verdict?
This macaron is a delight. One bite, and you’ll find yourself languidly making your way through a Mexican guava plantation. Did an armadillo just walk by? Yes, and he winked at you, knowing your choice of macarons is at the pinnacle of fine taste. The crème within these little guys is exquisitely perfumed with a sublime funk of guava goodness. At once floral, fruity and sassy/brassy, there’s little more I could hope for. Well, maybe the sublimely light and delicate crème could have been a denser cremeux . . . but I’m simply going to trust Philippe Andrieu’s better judgment on this one.
So, as a bit of a tangent here, I keep thinking about how Pierre Hermé got famous and how someone else could possibly hope to have a fraction of that success in Paris. I’m pretty sure much, not all, of his path to success came from taking the Ladurée macaron (which he knew well, having healmed Ladurée before starting his own business), creating a saucy range of flavors, leveraging smart marketing principles and then getting lucky that the internet/blogs burst into full steam just after he opened + that those sites all did and still do **** his ****. He’s also extremely talented, of course. What he, Ladurée and others are not doing is using different nuts in the macron shells. In fact, virtually all shops (with the exception of Pouchkine) don’t even flavor shells other than chocolate. Can you imagine someone doing a chestnut macaron shell with some awesome orange marmalade-based filling – or a pistachio macaron shell with a raspberry cremeux – not to mention the Brazil nut and macadamia nut possibilities?! Someone is eventually going to “take it there” and make some cash.
Note: Please do not leave comments about how I am belittling Hermé’s majesty by saying he got rich & famous off of macarons. Because, yeah, he got rich & famous off of macarons; it’s not actually a debatable point. And if you go to shop as often as I do, you’d know how tragic it is to see people constantly bypass his awesome pastries in favor of the macs.
Anyway, yes, these little guys make an excellent purchase. I’m even willing to give them my highest macaron praise and suggest buying a box of them alone, without the inclusion of other parfums. Ladurée has done good yet again.
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