French post office releases scratch-and-sniff baguette stamp | Hacker News Reader

French post office releases scratch-and-sniff baguette stamp

theguardian.com

100 pointsbookofjoe23 comments

Shades of the cabbage stamps from Ankh Morpork, though those ones caught fire..

Honestly, the industrial revolution series of books taught me more about economics than my undergraduate econ class did.

Is there some dictionary of chemistries that smell of certain things?

I assume there’s no baguette in the smell. It’s just something that sufficiently tricks the nose combined with a graphic and an expectation.

So if I wanted to make something smell like X could I look up the chemical recipe for that?

Demeter Fragrance Library: https://demeterfragrance.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwo6G...

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1582658373/french-baguette-perf...

https://wicked-good.co/collections/fragrances/products/frenc...

https://www.fragrantica.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=7911

https://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Fendi/La-Baguette-93162....

Often times, you can research the chemical composition of odors by searching for its name plus GCMS.

The Good Scent Company is a free online database of natural materials, pure aromachemicals, and formulae.

Issues of the trade rag Perfumer & Flavorist are available for free online and there will be content about GCMS, chemistry, and formulating.

Basenotes is a forum for amateur perfumery that may have relevant conversation.

And there are the manufacturers of chemicals used in fragrance and flavors: Givaudan, IFF, Firmenich, Symrise, and others. Their catalogues and the vendors that sell them (some even in small quantities) can be valuable resources just for exploring the space.

They can give you the basic recipe, but the full formula varies from application to application. Some molecules won't stand acid, or soap, or heat, so you need to work around it. It's rarely just one or two molecules, except in extremely cheap things, and it will need dozens of support flavors to get the right result.

The specifics are closely guarded secrets, because of the weird way the industry pays for research and manufacture.

Maybe Sweden will follow up with the surströmming stamp.

“In a surprise development in the early 21st Century, every country’s mail began to have a distinct odor…”

I have 19 stamps that I bought in 2019 and can’t find any opportunity to use.

Is postcrossing still a thing?

Send your friends post carts for no reason. It's so rare, they will definitely appreciate

Wait for the warm butter croissant variant.

That said, I don't know how french post is dealing with their core business these days. And this move smells like a dead-end phase.

Me, I'd go for the smelly cheese option.

> That said, I don't know how french post is dealing with their core business these days.

Badly. It got to the point that post simply disappears, never to be seen again.

It seems like the core logistics might still have some value, and offices will now become rental space. Stunning to see a national institution evaporates like that.

> Stunning to see a national institution evaporates like that.

The joys of privatisation..

From a consumer point of view, where the process is:

   Pay stamp -> letter in postbox -> black box -> letter delivered

it's difficult to argue that anything improved at all. In fact it got worse in all the steps, and on all the metrics.

1. Stamps got awfully more expensive

2. Local post offices have closed en-masse, and_or are open infrequently

3. The delivery times have increased drastically

4. Post gets lost more often.

If at least the service stayed reliable.. Instead, we've been facing a whole lot of fines and other issues because of undelivered letters and bills.

Iceland to follow with hákari.

Malaysia and/or Indonesia with durian.

Italy with pizza, of course.

Sweden with surströmming.

Would be particularly hilarious as air mail stamp.

Somehow I spent 10 or so days in Sweden and never heard of this.

Actually, IMHO Sweden doesn't seem all that traditional. Plenty of great food without any particular Swedish heritage.

I guess restaurants avoid it because of its long-range effects.

> In 1981, a German landlord evicted a tenant without notice after the tenant spread surströmming brine in the apartment building's stairwell. When the landlord was taken to court, the court ruled that the termination was justified after the landlord's party demonstrated their case by opening a can inside the courtroom.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming

Funny. I was in an Asian grocery recently, and they actually had whole durian in the produce section. How long until some pranker plunges in a knife and opens one up?

Surströmming is mostly only eaten in August and really only in costal communities. In fact it used to be illegal to eat surströmming before the third Thursday in August, and many people still follow that tradition. Even the people who ostensibly like it only eat it once or twice a year at special surströmming parties in the second half of August. So unless you're in Sweden in August and visiting a place with a strong fishing tradition it's very unlikely you'll see it.

The true national dish of Sweden and Sweden's main contribution the culinary world is of course the kebab pizza with all its variations.

It seems like a fairly small run (600k stamps), I hope that's not all.

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