Express Toast

Now the French can bag their beloved baguettes whenever they want.

Picture this: you’re craving a meat pie at 3a.m but 7-Eleven and Harry’s Café de Wheels is closed. Pretty much the end of the world. This is how the French feel when they’re deprived of their crusty delight at night or on holidays, where most of France’s 33 000 bakeries are bolted.

Though, their prayers have been answered by the bread god. His Holiness, Jean-Louis Hecht, has invented the baguette vending machine. You read it right folks. Magnifique indeed.

The baker from north-east France has recently unveiled his genius 24-hour automated baguette dispensers in Paris and Hombourg-Haut. Both located beside Hecht’s bakeries, the machines bake partly precooked loaves and deliver them hot within seconds to hungry customers. All for just €1. And no waiting in line, unless there’s a sudden flock of peckish night owls.

What’s more, the baguettes come in cute little bags. Even fast-food is cultural in France.

But breaders can’t be choosers. Only one choice is on offer- a hard-crust ‘traditional’style baguette, which is chunkier and crunchier than the standard version.

Although the baked good is a staple of the country’s cuisine, it’s often unobtainable when bakeries shut at lunch in small towns and quiet parts of Paris and during summer. Plus, late-night supermarkets are tres hard to find in France. Thanks to Hecht, Frenchies can now get their daily bread whenever they wish.

He may even make more dough by expanding across Paris, Europe and the US.

Now all that’s needed is a vending machine serving big bowls of coffee. Perfect with a baguette (and a cigarette if we’re referring to the French).

Or even a meat pie for that matter.

By Jenna Chaitowitz

Image: Flickr