Are these stamps toast?
France has released baguette-inspired scratch-and-sniff stamps, but disgusted bakers argue that the postage item is unable to properly replicate the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread.
“You just have to rub the stamp here like this with your nails,” Clarisse Briend, a postal worker, told Today. “You can smell the bread, the baguette.”
However, Paris’ Leonie Bakery manager Jeanne Barrere says it “smells more like vanilla.”
Meanwhile, the bakery’s chief baker, Harlem Gbodialo, likened the scent to a “sugary, fruity aroma” that he couldn’t pin down.
In France, the baguette — which appears on the $2.14 square stamp tied up with ribbon in the colors of the nation’s flag — is the “bread of our daily life, symbol of our gastronomy, jewel of our culture,” the postal service said in a statement earlier this year.
“Bearer of culture and customs, the baguette is deeply rooted in the daily practices of the French,” said the post office, La Poste.
“She embodies a ritual, that of going to her bakery, a local business anchored in the regions, attracting twelve million consumers every day. The making of six billion baguettes each year confirms its iconic status in French food heritage. The baguette transcends borders to become an international icon.”
The baguette stamp is the perfect ornamentation for a postcard home while attending the 2024 Paris Olympics.
But with the stampede of tourists descending on the City of Love for the Olympic Games, the coveted postage, of which there are only 594,000, might be difficult to snag — even if the smell isn’t the best thing since sliced bread.
