Au Revoir to All That

Recently I finished reading Michael Steinberger's Au Revoir to All That. The book is about the decline of the quality of French food culture. There are chapters on the influence of the Michelin Guide, the problem with Camembert cheese, the rise of the entrepreneur chefs such as Alain Ducasse, and the success of McDonald's in France. I quite enjoyed reading the book.

I learned from the book that the McCafés in France serve macarons. I was quite amused by Steinberger's account of him trying the macarons along with other journalists:

Petit [Chief Executive of McDonald's France] began making the rounds with a plate of macarons and insisted I try one. I took a pistachio. Not bad, I thought, but no Ladurée. As if reading my mind, Petit immediately chimed in, "We get the macarons from Holder, the company that owns Ladurée."

Below is an ad for the macaron at McDo:

I am reminded of my earlier blog entry on asking Vera to choose between Robu's macaron and McDo. It looks like in France, it would be no contest.