Making Macarons
Author & Photographer: Alex Wang
Everyone in mom’s family loves food, and, subsequently, making food. I make macarons. I’m not sure why.
Certainly it’s not because I love eating them. They’re inherently too sweet, and somewhat monotonous in flavor. I usually manage no more than a couple before I have to pass them around to family.
Perhaps it’s because I find meticulousness deeply satisfying. There is no last-minute improvisation or variation when making macarons. You can swap out the fillings, of course, but that’s depthless, and no more innovative than wearing a different tie to work every day. The actual almond cookies themselves have remained unchanged from the original recipe created centuries ago. Specialized tools exist solely to make them. When you’re making macarons, things that you don’t think matter do matter, like the humidity of the room or the age of your oven. If you try to whip egg whites and even a trace of oil comes into contact with them, they will refuse to form properly. So you wipe down every bowl with distilled vinegar, even if it is fresh out of the dishwasher.
My dad also cooks, and his parents do too. In the summer we fly to China to stay in their apartment. I am eighteen, in my last year of high school. That makes eighteen years.
We get there in the late morning. They make lunch. Always using one heavy, dull cleaver and one scratched, dented wok. No matter how many dishes they are cooking. Onions are chopped unevenly and imprecisely, with the skin still left on. Stir fry is made with whatever is available, whether it is a pound of cabbage or a fistful. Chinese frying pans are always greasy with last night’s residue. They never use the dishwasher.
Everyone sits down at the table as I stand up. I sneak off to the bathroom to wash my bowl. When I return to the table, all eyes are on me. I wipe my chopsticks. Then I pick at and devein the tiny shrimp placed in my bowl, but don’t eat them. By now everyone else is already halfway through their food, and they recognize it. Dad tells them not to worry about me. They speak many words that I cannot understand, and their voices become more and more agitated. My grandparents argue, not with frustration but with some kind of desperate eagerness, with my father, my aunt, and themselves. They don’t argue with me. I excuse myself, and go to sit on my bed. I feel queasy, even though I haven’t eaten anything. I go back to make amends with them, and they smile weakly and say that it’s alright and I don’t have to apologize for anything.
One day I ask Dad why my grandparents are so concerned, and worried, and particular, and fixated, and fussy and meticulous and obsessed about my eating. I pause, and then I admit that I must seem ungrateful.
But that isn’t Dad’s answer. He says, “They’re too old to play soccer with you, and you’re too young to like their soap operas. How else are they supposed to show you that they care?”
That night at dinner, I finish my plate and even go for seconds. The next day, I go to the supermarket with them and buy manila clams and white wine. For lunch, I make them spaghetti alla vongole. I cook more for them, but at the same time I slowly learn to enjoy the variations in flavor and texture that pop up in their stir-fries from day to day.
When I return to the United States, I make macarons again, but I find myself craving scallion hotcakes with black malt vinegar, a simple dish that my grandparents love. I try to make them, but mine turn out floury and dry. I’m baffled because my grandparents always seemed to make them effortlessly, with no measured ingredients or measured thought. It suddenly strikes me that after this year, I won’t be going to their apartment each summer anymore. I call Dad and ask him to teach me how to make them this weekend.