Will the Real Macarons...er, Macaroons or Maakarons, Please Stand Up!
One of these pastries is also called "macaron," but which one?
We've spilled lots of ink lately on the difference between macaroons and macarons -- the former being sticky, coconut-based cookies popular for Passover, the latter cheerless-but-colorful sandwich cookies that taste something like Styrofoam. But on Good Friday at a new Lebanese bakery in Bay Ridge, a third type surfaced.
The new Cedar Pastry in Bay Ridge was thronged on Good Friday evening.
Transliterated "macorons" from the Arabic, but obviously based on the same French root word behind the other spellings, these cookies are torpedo-shaped and glazed with honey, flaunting a mild fennel flavor that makes you want to eat another, and another, and another. The interior is engagingly gritty.
A cursory Googling turns up other spellings, too -- including "maakaron" -- but clearly the word is the same. French influences are rife in modern Beirut, but frankly, we can't see how this macaroon relates to the other two. Conjectures by readers would be appreciated.
Cedar Pastry
7204 Fifth Avenue
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
718-238-8111
Neither sandwich cookies nor sweet Passover treats
Next: A visual catalog of Lebanese pastries, courtesy of cedarseed.com ...
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