thegeekyblonde:

so sarah bernhardt, france’s most famous actress of all time, was touring in amsterdam one day. she stopped in a pastry shop for a snack, and because she loved this one cookie so much and it was the trend for dutch bakers to name new creations after celebrities (and everyone love sarah bernhardt), the baker named the chocolate-dipped almond macaroon after her. 

fast-forward a few decades to world war two, the french resistance notices that the sarah bernhardt cookie looks like the dials of the radio transmitters they use. hence, if you’re a french spy and you walk into any pasty shop in the country to ask for a sarah bernhardt cookie, you can signal to other spies that you have a new message.

sarah bernhardt was just about everything nazis hated: jewish, disabled (amputated leg near the end of her life), really liked kissing women. so the fact that she was able to create some sweetness that helped her country fight, years after her death, makes me really happy.