Please Stop Saying 'macaroon' When You Mean 'macaron' - Metro

Today in ‘really? This is what you’re moaning about?’: I am so bloody fed up of people saying ‘macaroon’ when they mean ‘macaron’.

Every time it happens, it feels like nails on a blackboard.

I try to subtly repeat back the word pronounced correctly, ‘macaron’, to get the heathen mispronouncing a delicious treat to mirror the way I’m saying it.

It doesn’t work. They forge onwards, macarooning this way and that.

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If they’ve said it enough times to push me over the edge, I explain, gently, that it’s actually pronounced ‘macaron’. Not ‘macaroon’.

I’m then usually looked at like I’m being a pretentious food snob.

But I swear, I’m not.

You say chorizo however you please. Don’t worry about calling snails escargot. Eat your steak well done (but don’t you f***ing dare cover it in ketchup).

The macaron/macaroon mixup bugs me because macarons and macaroons are two different words signifying two entirely different things.

Let me break it down.

These are macaroons:

A macaroon is a slightly chewy treat made of shredded coconut and condensed milk.

 

These are macarons:

A macaron is a French sandwich style biscuit made from almond flour and egg white meringues, with a filling of buttercream, caramel, jam or some other delicious goodness.

Macaroons are very easy to make but not currently that popular.

Macarons are a load of faff, and are the trendiest biscuit around.

And for reasons I don’t understand, people keep referring to macarons as macaroons. Even when they’re reading the word ‘macaron’, they’ll say ‘macaroon’. Even when you say ‘would you like a macaRON’, they’ll respond ‘ooh, I’d love a macaROON’.

The issues become so insidious that now, big brands actually label macarons as ‘macaroons’. If you Google ‘macaroons’, pictures of macarons will appear.

I think I know what happened.

When we first started seeing the word ‘macaron’ during the great macaron boom of the 2000s (I blame Blair Waldorf), it was new and exciting, but just one letter away from a familiar word we knew and understood.

So we jumped the gun. We shoved ‘macarons’ into the word ‘macaroons’ so that we could assure ourselves that we were pronouncing the word correctly, that we knew what things were.

And thus we kept inserting that extra ‘o’ where it didn’t belong.

Soon, we were saying ‘macaroon’ when we meant ‘macaron’ all the time, and other macaron newbies were hearing our pronunciation and assuming it was correct.

That is how this horror started. That is how it spread. That is how it infiltrated our recipe books and our food packaging and everything else in this messed up macaroon world.

It’s been years now, and this life-ruining error in pronunciation still stands.

But it’s not too late to fix this.

Please, friends and food-lovers. Stop saying ‘macaroon’ when you mean ‘macaron’.

Learn the difference. Look at the word, and note that there is just one ‘o’ in ‘macaron’. Recognise that ‘macaron’ is a French word, and while you do not have to pronounce it in a flawless French accent, it is unacceptable to mangle it into ‘macaroon’.

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Commit to saying ‘macaron’ correctly. Casually mention it to all other wrongdoers who persist in disrespecting a delicious French patisserie item by equating it to something made with condensed milk and coconut.*

*Macaroons are delicious, to be clear. But they are not on the same level as macarons.

Let us end this madness now. Let us say ‘macarons’ when we mean macarons, and ‘macaroons’ when we’re at our grandma’s house and she offers us a coconutty treat.

No more calling macarons ‘macaroons’. No more.

POLL Poll

How do you say macaron?

• MacaRON, I am no foolCheck
• MacaROON. I am a monsterCheck

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