Post office in France rolls out croissant-scented stamp

And of course the `olfactoryFactory` component for Enterprise™ frameworks.

<bouquet>

I can't wait for nasa.gov to let everybody smell Uranus.

I was initially reading that it was a croissant with a stamp scent and I was confused...

Presumably the volatility inherent to “volatile chemicals” makes it challenging to reproduce on-demand. I’d imagine you’d need something like dozens of base compounds, alcohols and acids to create esters and carrier media, some way of protecting all of it from oxygen, a hyper-accurate mixing device that can then by hyper-cleaned between each scent, since our noses would be too sensitive to allow even a small amount of cross-contamination…and then, why stop at smell? You basically already have everything you need for taste as well. Insert some lab-grown tissues and/or fibers, and we’ve invented the Star Trek replicator!

Yes, we also need a cappuccino smell stamp.

That's how I would define kouign-amann.

And even then, beware of scams, even in France. "Real small bakeries" is not a guarantee. Simple "croissants" don't have to use butter, and they often don't. "Croissants au beurre" have butter in it, but it may be only a small quantity, the rest being a mix of vegetable fats. They are usually better than the ones with margarine, but you still don't have the real thing. You need to make sure to get "croissants pur beurre", or even better "croissants pur beurre AOP".

Many bakeries have both, the "pur beurre" are more expensive, obviously.

When you look at the raw ingredient price, it makes a lot of sense that they want to use alternatives to butter. Margarine is about 4€/kg, fake butter 8€/kg, real butter 12€/kg, there is about 25g of it in a croissant. Considering that a croissant is about 1€ (outside of big cities / tourist places), that's a significant fraction of the cost.

Also, most bakeries in France don't make their own croissants, pur beurre or not. Even for those that make their own bread. It is quite a complicated process and most bakeries just buy them frozen from a factory and only do the baking. Now, it doesn't mean they are bad, I prefer it when croissants are fully made on site, but I can make do with industrial dough, "pur beurre" however is non negotiable.

> It's not just the states, pretty much all of Europe

Everywhere you go pastries are not even 10% as good as in France. You can pick anything in a semi decent french bakery and it'll be miles ahead of the best pastries you'll find in most places

That's one of the greatest mystery of life to me, all they have to do is copy super simple hundred years old recipes. Why don't they make flans ? eclairs ? croissants ? madeleines ? sablés ? Everyone else seems dead set on baking the sweetest or greasiest things

Most bakeries offer the two types though: "au beurre" and "sans beurre". The later don’t necessarily needs to be made with cheap margarine, a good vegetal oil (or a combinaison) suits very well. The flavor is different and I prefer those than the butter ones. Freshness is a must obviously as peer said.

> even in France you'll find cheap croissants made with margarine

Rare. Most bakeries in France serve their local community, and they won't get repeat business if their croissants are shit. There is actually a standard and you can't call yourself a bakery (boulangerie) unless you make your stuff from scratch onsite.

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT0000...

This is correct, croissants are best the closer they are to the time they were pulled from the oven. A specialty bakery will have croissants made that day. Sometimes cafes will carry a local bakers goods, just ask.

I'm not a croissant expert, but I do like the Costco ones. I just need to convince 2-3 friends to split them with me, and then eat multiple per day, in order for them to make sense as a purchase.

Most modern glues are synthetic. Super glue is usually cyanoacrylate, regular glue sticks might be Polyvinyl Acetate (PVA). Outside of specialty glues that are intentionally going for old school methods, it's not really a thing anymore

I don't know, The Hill reported [0] that:

> The renegotiation — brokered by the French government — comes as many of France’s 33,000 bakeries face financial ruin amid spiking energy costs spurred in part by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. > > Energy suppliers like TotalEnergies and EDF have agreed to allow the country’s bakeries to renegotiate their contracts if they struggle to pay their bills due to rising energy and crop prices, according to Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. > > These companies have agreed in principle “to dissolve contracts when prices have risen prohibitively high and unsustainable for some bakeries,” Le Maire told reporters.

The precise number of 33 000 bakeries would mean that all of them faced financial ruin?

That's a bit much.

I remember this was at the time when there was this EU rule which mandate to align the price of electricity on gas. Only Spain and Portugal did not apply it.

We have to remember those oven use enormous amount of electricity and in fact many bakeries do not produce much of what they sell on-site. It is often made in factories.

Funny enough there is a better chance that bread you buy in a supermarket have been cooked on-site than in a small bakery.

- [0] https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/379737...

I would actually disagree. A typical characteristic about "food in the place it's famously from" is that the _median_ level of quality is quite high, and particularly in the case of anything involving bread - that it's fresh. The case of pizza in NYC is the same. There are certainly places selling shit pizza and shit croissants to tourists, but even in a fairly popular tourist hotspot it will likely be very freshly made and of surprisingly good quality. Even the bottom of the barrel (a $1.50 pizza near Times Square or Paris train-station chain boulangerie) is above the best thing you can get in countless countries around the world. Don't get me wrong, I'll happily go in search of The Best of whatever, but if just pick a place at random, it probably will be surprisingly good.

Legally, to even call yourself a boulangerie in France you must bake your goods on site, make the dough from scratch, ferment yourself, shape everything yourself... that alone guarantees a certain floor of quality: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000... There are in fact quite strict laws about boulangeries in France... since a law in 1790 they are not even allowed to pick their own vacation days!

In Paris, look for the little old ladies carrying half-baguettes and go in the direction they're coming from.

Not really true. Most locals in most places will have opinions about the bakery you should go to and which one you should avoid, even if that means going to the next village over. Even if that means having to schedule because the good bakery is only open twice a week.

In my experience, the "bad" bakeries are on par with the average bakery in the rest of Europe (at least in countries that do not have a strong bakery culture): they're _fine_, but "fine" isn't really good enough for a such staple of food and culture. Of course, some bakeries are particularly bad and much worse than "fine".

Not my experience with bakeries in rural France, which I have more experience with than Paris. I’ve spent much more time trying these things in rural France than in Paris. I can say that Nice was good though

It’s much easier to find better bread and cakes in Germany even in cities

In France, most of it is quite poor quality, rural or city