They are recognizable as a white, octagonal type of candy pastille bearing the word "Vichy" in all-caps.

[3] The pastilles were mentioned by French author Guy de Maupassant in his short story, The Magic Couch.

[8] However, the mayor of Vichy decided to mark sweets as cheese on their ration cards to avoid running out of them.

[8] In Einstein's Beets: An Examination of Food Phobias, American author Alexander Theroux opines that due to its connotation to Vichy France, "many French citizens are still made uneasy" by hearing the phrase.

[9] In The Long Aftermath: Cultural Legacies of Europe at War, 1936-2016, Manuel Bragança and Peter Tame agree, as they argue that Vichy France's use of the sweets as propaganda eventually "backfired.