In France, the streets are paved with gold, the McDonalds serve an enticing array of delicate pastries (instead of chopped up Big Macs wrapped in tortillas), and people complain so effortlessly, it's like breathing. Clearly we should all move there so we can eat macarons at McDonalds and complain about it.
Behold, the artisans of snobbery! From The Wall Street Journal:
Once the preserve of high-end French patisseries such as Ladurée and Pierre Hermé, macarons are showing up at retailers like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Starbucks. Even McDonald's is selling a scaled-down version in its McCafés in France, backed by ads showing two hands holding the tiny treat like a hamburger.
Instead of celebrating, however, fans of the meringue-like pastry have been whipped into a frenzy.
"Macarons are not meant to be mainstream," sniffs Laetitia Brock, a native of Paris who has been blogging about French culture from Washington for the past six years.
Well, of course macarons aren't meant to be mainstream. Macarons are not to be handled like a common hamburger by the common fingers of common folk. They are to be served on a gilded fleur de lis strapped to the broad back of Gerard Depardieu (this is his eternal punishment for Green Card), and only in the most charming of the many charming patisseries in Paris. Furthermore, the macarons are so delicate, they should only be picked up by the hands of French aristocrats (whose bones are lighter and more delicate than the clumsy heavy hands of the average person). If there are no French aristocrats available, one should use feather gloves to gingerly pick up the macaron and take a bite. This bite should be savored, for it is what heaven—well, the most exclusive enclaves of heaven—taste like.
How dare McDonald's share this French delicacy with the rest of the world? Or with just the McDonald's locations in France?
"I saw them at the McCafé on the Champs-Élysées—just down the street from Ladurée! What is the world coming to?!?" commented Allison Lightwine, using the screen name La Mom.
"It was so weird to see these delicate, very French pastries in something that's so American. It's kind of like if you showed up in a tuxedo to a baseball game, it was so out of place," Ms. Lightwine, who writes a blog about being an American mom in Paris, said in an interview.
So an American immigrant going to the McCafe on the Champs Elysees is outraged by an American chain's co-option of a French pastry? La Mom is Le Ugh.
Obviously, there are plenty of macarons to go around. If anything, there should be more—until someone decides to make ManMacarons. Then we'll know we've gone too far.