Amiens, France, preserves a long-forgotten original macaron recipe with a history almost as rich as its taste.
Close your eyes and picture a macaron. Chances are you’ll imagine a colorful, merengue-like pastry with two delicate shells filled with jam or ganache all lined up in a Parisian window. You’d be right that these are the popular, modern versions of macarons made famous by the likes of Ladurée and Pierre Hermé—but if that’s all you think of, you’re missing a huge part of French culture.
Travel to Amiens, France, about an hour north of Paris, and you’ll discover a new (or rather, old) world of macarons that are nothing like the ones you imagine and much more traditional.
“Macarons, as we think of them today, the sandwiches, are just one type of macaron, not the macaron par excellence,” says Food Historian Loïc Bienassis, member of the Institut Européen d’Histoire et des Culture de l’Alimentation (University of Tours). To really try a French macaron, you’d have to try the regional specialty here.
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Picture it: Every morning, down a cobblestoned street in Amiens, Jean Trogneux unlocks the doors to his family business, La Maison de Jean Trogneux. Among chocolates and confections, little discs wrapped in gold foil and red lettering shine in the window facing the busy shopping street as they have for six generations since 1872. These are the macarons d’Amiens, a prized regional favorite, and they are the real macarons, thank you very much.
Unwrap a macaron from Trogneux, and you might be surprised that they look nothing like the world-famous variety that’s so well-known at Ladurée and Pierre Hermé. Not the bright, colorful-filled sandwiches you’ve probably posted on your socials on a trip to Paris—those weren’t heavy on the scene until at least the 1990s.
In fact, they are puck-shaped and golden, a simple recipe Trogneux’s family created in 1898 that harkens back to the very first recipe known in France, using just almonds, sugar, honey, sweet almond oil, bitter almonds, and egg white. Sweet and moist and delightfully chewy, the recipe has remained unchanged since. Here, this is the best way to indulge in a macaron.
They also hide a fascinating history. According to Trogneux, a leading lady we’re all familiar with — Queen Catherine de Medici — can be credited with bringing the original macaron recipe over from Italy using almonds from the Spanish invasion. Imagine an Italian recipe becoming France’s signature dessert!
Bienassis insists that’s a fun story, but likely not the case. Most regional recipes actually date to the 19th or 20th centuries, and anything dating back further was just plain made up. “Interestingly for American audiences, the oldest recipe I know of is found in Martha Washington’s Cookbook, written in early 17th-century England,” the historian says.
Whatever the origin, you’ll hear one thing over and over around these parts: they’re, well, better, and they have the accolades to prove it. In 1992, the macaron d’Amiens won the “Grand Prix de France” prize for regional specialties at the International Sweets and Biscuits Fair in Paris.
Not to mention, they’re a simpler, purer form of the treat that locals are generally proud of and believe serves as a culinary snapshot of the region. “Above all, they are a small source of pride, underpinned, indeed, by the idea that they’re old, ‘traditional.’ No doubt about it,” Bienassis says, adding that they’re “not at all” just for tourists. “They’re seen as a small way of raising the city’s fame, and locally, everyone always likes to say that their regional specialty is the best.”
Although Amiens’ macarons are well known in Picardie, there are several variations in other towns to add to your list, including Boulay, Cormery, Joyeuse, Lusignan, Montmorillon, Nancy, Saint-Emilion, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. (Nancy’s traditional macarons, a bit flatter and more cookie-like with craquante tops, claim to be one of the oldest recipes in France, dating back two centuries.)
But besides prizes, Trogneux has an appeal that others don’t: they’re practically French royalty. If the name is familiar, it’s because French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife Brigitte is part of the Trogneux family; in fact, the family once made a joke: “We already had the macaron of Amiens. Now we also have the Macron of Amiens.” With several storefronts in Amiens, its business is synonymous with the city, and without a visit, you’d be missing a key part.
And Amiens has much to offer. It may not be the kind of town where tourists line up to snap photos of sugary confections in the window, but just a quick TGV ride from Paris, it’s a quieter spot in Picardie that’s well worth a stop on the way to Normandy. It’s what former resident (and French President) Emmauel Macron has called France’s most “underrated city,” with a Notre Dame Cathedral much bigger and more intricately adorned than that of Paris’, plenty of literary and World War II history, and unique floating gardens that highlight the region’s traditional farming techniques via barque à cornet boats. To experience the traditional, then, is to experience this town.
So, to really get a taste of France outside the increasingly commercialized streets of Paris, you’d have to try a macaron d’Amiens. Try one on top of the cathedral, in the Parc Saint Pierre, while floating down Les Hortillonages, and you’ll practically be transported back to 1800s Amiens.
The bottom line: if you’ve only tried a Parisian macaron, you haven’t tried a real traditional macaron yet. If, when you close your eyes and think of a macaron, you still see only colorful shells filled with jam and not golden almondy toasted goodness, then you haven’t fully explored France with your tastebuds.
