Celebrity Chefs stamp subjects revealed: Beard, Child, Chen, Lewis, Rojas-Lombardi

Five celebrity chefs will be honored Sept. 26 with a set of United States stamps: James Beard, Julia Child, Joyce Chen, Edna Lewis and Felipe Rojas-Lombardi.

Pictured here is the Beard stamp. The Postal Service will reveal the other stamp designs through social media outlets leading up to the first-day ceremony in Chicago, Ill.

The five stamps will be issued in a pane of 20. The selvage area has a photograph of a large plate set on a white linen tablecloth.

The subjects were announced on the U.S. Postal Service’s online store at http://store.usps.com.

Each stamp subject was described briefly on the order page for the stamp issue:

"Teacher and author James Beard (1903-1985) avidly fostered a more vibrant food culture in the United States. He was a passionate advocate of local ingredients and markets, and his popular books covered everything from seafood to bread.

"Through cookbooks, a trailblazing television show, and her landmark restaurants in the Boston area, Joyce Chen (1917-1994) became one of America’s greatest popularizers of Chinese food. She is also credited with introducing the flat-bottom wok to American kitchens.

"Julia Child (1912-2004) demystified French cuisine in the United States. Her extremely popular television shows and cookbooks made her synonymous with American cooking for more than 40 years, and she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003.

"By bringing such quintessential dishes as shrimp and grits and roast chicken to the plates of trendy restaurants, Edna Lewis (1916-2006) showed her fellow Americans the vitality of Southern cooking.

"Widely credited with introducing the Spanish small-plate tapas concept to American restaurants, Felipe Rojas-Lombardi (1946-1991) drew upon the eclectic kitchens of his youth in Peru to raise the profile of South American cuisine in the United States."

The stamp illustrations were created by artist Jason Seiler. Greg Breeding served as USPS art director for the project.

The U.S. Postal Service removed the names and information for four of the five chefs from its website after Linn's story appeared online.

Updated 9/2/2014 8:15 AM