Sunday, February 14, 2010

You Say Macarons, I Say Macaroons, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

I may have been premature yesterday suggesting that the Macaroon Class may threaten the hegemony of Pittsburgh's Cupcake Class. The NPR story that prompted this little éclat apparently failed sufficiently to distinguish macaroons, which are the light coconut cookies that keep places like the Duquesne Club in business, from macarons (note the modestly different spelling), which are the French confections that are in fact driving the cupcake craze into the proverbial ditch. Wikipedia offers a discussion here; a trendier but more refined discussion is found at Serious Eats. Now that you can buy upscale cupcakes from a truck roving the streets of New York, macarons appear to be the Next Big (but Small) Food Thing.

Are there macarons to be found in Pittsburgh? Is the Cupcake Class still sleeping soundly?

Apologies, meanwhile, to any Pittsburgher who was misled by the suggestion that the Duquesne Club might become hip.

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