Macaroon or Macaron? They are the same? No!
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The History of Macaroons
The macaroon's story begins in medieval Italy. The word is believed to derive from the Italian "maccherone" (also the root of "macaroni"), meaning a fine paste or dough. The earliest macaroons were simple cookies made of almond paste, sugar, and egg whites — essentially what we'd now call an Italian almond macaroon or amaretti.
The Italian Origins (8th–9th Century)
The cookies are thought to have originated in Italian monasteries, where monks made them as a sweet treat. According to food historians, they may have been introduced to Italy via Arab traders who brought almond-based confections to Sicily during the Arab rule of the island. Almonds were central to Arab cuisine and sweets.
France Gets Involved (16th Century)
Macaroons spread to France in the 1500s, reportedly brought by Catherine de Medici's Italian pastry chefs when she married King Henry II of France in 1533. French bakers adopted and refined the almond-egg white cookie, and the treat became popular in convents and bakeries across France.
A famous legend holds that two Carmelite nuns in Nancy, France — seeking food that fit their dietary restrictions — began baking and selling almond macaroons during the French Revolution. They became known as the "Macaroon Sisters" (Les Sœurs Macarons), and their recipe is still sold in Nancy today.
The Coconut Macaroon (19th Century)
The coconut macaroon is a later American and European adaptation, appearing in cookbooks in the mid-to-late 1800sas dried, shredded coconut became widely available through trade. Bakers simply substituted coconut for almonds in the traditional recipe, keeping the same egg white and sugar base. This version became enormously popular in the United States — particularly in Jewish cooking, since they are naturally flourless and kosher for Passover.
The French Macaron (20th Century)
The delicate, sandwich-style French macaron (two almond meringue shells with a ganache or buttercream filling) was popularized in Paris in the early 20th century, most famously by the patisserie Ladurée, which began selling the double-decker version in the 1930s. This refined, colorful version became a global sensation in the 2000s.
Why Is It "Macaroon" and Not "Macroon"?
This comes down to etymology, phonetics, and how words travel between languages. Here's the chain:
• Arabic: maqqarūn — a type of paste or dumpling
• Italian: maccherone — fine paste/dough
• French: macaron — the cookie
• English: borrowed from French as macaroon, with an extra "o" added
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When English speakers borrowed the French word macaron, they tended to anglicize it by adding that extra vowel at the end — much like how English transformed other French words. The double "o" ending (-oon) was a common English pattern for words borrowed from French or other Romance languages, seen also in words like bassoon (from French basson), cartoon (from Italian cartone), platoon (from French peloton), and dragoon (from French dragon).
So "macaroon" is simply the anglicized spelling, while "macaron" is the original French. Today, the two spellings have actually taken on distinct meanings in modern usage:
• Macaron = the French sandwich cookie with meringue shells
• Macaroon = the coconut (or almond) mound cookie
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The spelling "macroon" (dropping the first "a") simply never took hold — the full vowel sequence ma-ca-roon was preserved from the Italian/French original through the anglicization process, keeping all three syllables intact.