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La Toque Blanche
There are as many legends
surrounding the tall white hat that symbolizes culinary
expertise as there are ways to bake a cake. One likely
tale is that the head cooks in Assyrian households
were allowed to wear high cloth headdresses patterned
on the crowns of their royal masters.
This distinction was intended to encourage valuable
servants to remain faithful to their masters, who
lived in constant fear of being poisoned. The ribs
or pleats in the headdress represented the ribs in
the king's crown and were stitched into the cloth
and stiffened with starch.
Today the chef's hat has one hundred pleats -- said
to represent the one hundred ways that a good chef
should be able to cook eggs. This legend probably
originated in ancient Persia or in Rome, where mater
culinarians were presented with bonnet-like caps studded
with laurel leaves. Other sources say the story comes
from France and is of fairly recent origin.
Yet another version, similar to the Assyrian one,
ascribes the pattern of the modern-day toque to the
headdress of Greek Orthodox priests. During the decline
of the Byzantine Empire at the end of the sixth century,
intellectuals and artists sought sanctuary in the
monasteries from the invading Northern barbarians.
Many of these mend were good cooks and became chefs
in the monastery kitchens. Some imperial chefs from
royal households may also have fled to the monasteries.
As a disguise, these refugees adopted the habits and
headgear of their hosts -- but, instead of the traditional
black, they chose garments in white.
Sifting fact from fiction seems impossible. Many people
believe that today's toque blanche is a more recent
result of the gradual evolution of head coverings
worn by cooks through the centuries.
Looking through illustrations of past headgear, one
sees that the "toque" originally referred to a head
covering worn by both men and women. It eventually
assumed the shape of the small, round, close-fitting
band or "crown" of cloth without a projecting brim
but encompassing a gathering of material covering
the top of the head. Sometimes of gatherings were
pleated. By the end of the sixteenth century, the
height, shape and stiffness of the gathered material
varied from country to country. It ranged from the
flattened beret style of the French to the formally
pleated middle height of the Italians to the tall,
softly-gathered style favored by the Germans. Illustrations
in cookbooks of these periods show male cooks wearing
a variety of headgear, including floppy berets, tall
toques gathered in to topknots, skull caps and stocking
caps resembling pointed nightcaps.
French cooks of the eighteenth century generally wore
the "casque a meche" or stocking cap, the colors of
which varied according to rank. Mr. Boucher, chef
to the French statesman Talleyrand (l754-l838), is
credited with introducing white as the standard color
when he insisted for sanitary reasons that his cooks
wear white caps. During this period, Spanish cooks
wore berets of white wool or ticking; Germans wore
pointed Napoleonic hats with a decorative tassel;
the British wore starched Scotch caps and black skull
caps sometimes referred to as librarians' caps. In
addition to stocking caps, French cooks, especially
pastry cooks, wore a bank of linen or ticking with
a central mound of the same fabric pleated on the
edge. By the end of the eighteenth century, it was
full, heavily starched and held in the middle with
a circular whalebone, producing the effect of a halo.
Under Napoleon III (1808-1833), the Greek bonnet ornamented
with a tassel was in vogue. Bald cooks purportedly
wore caps in velour or heavy cloth wile persons with
hair wore them in linen or netting.
The famous chef M. Antonin Careme, whose career spanned
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (l784-l833)
is known to have worn the flattened, starched toque
with a piece of round cardboard tucked inside. His
book La Maitre d'Hotel (1822) has a frontis-piece
illustration showing a chef in "costume anciene" wearing
a stocking cap while a chef in "costume moderne" sports
what may be either a whalebone or cardboard-braced
toque.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, cooks
still wore a variety of caps including the skull cap,
beret, and short pleated pastry cook's cap, as well
as the taller version reminiscent of the German toque
of the fifteenth century.. Probably because of its
comfort and imposing appearance the tall, stiffly
starched and neatly pleated white hat, favored by
the famous Auguste Escoffier (l846-l935), became more
and more popular during the early part of the twentieth
century. Today the tall "toque blanche" has become
the standard headgear of professional cooks.
Whatever its true history, it is worn with pride and
maintained with care as a vital part of the uniform
or a working chef.
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Le chef de cuisine in full working whites evokes an
instant sense of recognition, Worldwide, the uniform
of white Jacket checkered pants, neckerchief, apron
and side towel, topped by the distinctive tall toque
blanche, signals the presence of a skilled practitioner
of an ancient craft - the culinary arts. The wearer
of such a uniform is obviously equipped to prepare
and cook the kind of food once demanded by kings and
now ordered by every cash-or credit-card carrying
citizen.
Today's chef, of course, is much more than a cook.
He or she knows and practices modern methods of hygiene
and sanitation, possesses managerial and interpersonal
skills, is aware of nutritional and foodservice trends
in buying, storing and cost control. In many kitchens,
a computer now sits alongside the stove - almost as
familiar a sight as skillet and saucepan - but, even
in the ate of technology chefs still must have the
old-fashioned virtues: a capacity for hard work and
long hours, plus an unlimited curiosity about food.
The uniform worn by these commanders of the kitchen
has evolved over the centuries from a practical need
to protect the wearer and for the aesthetic purpose
of presenting a clean, wholesome image. At the same
time, it confers distinction, establishes status and
denotes pride.
At the Culinary Institute, chef-instructors wear white
double-breasted jackets with sleeves neatly turned
back at the cuff. Red and blue braid stripes at the
collar and above the left pocket distinguish instructors
from students, who otherwise wear virtually the same
uniform. A neckerchief tied cravat-style effects much
the kind of finis hing touch that a tie worn with
a business suit achieves. Today, it is not so essential
as when chefs toiled over open fires in badly ventilated
kitchens; then the scarf served to catch and absorb
facial perspiration. Different colors of neckerchiefs
mean different things at the Institute. Chef-instructors
sport a white one;' students generally wear yellow
neckerchiefs, with the exception of members of the
Service Club who wear distinctive blue ones.
In the United States, a chef's trousers are patterned
with a small black and white checkered design while
in European countries the checks are generally blue
and white. Whether black and white or blue and white,
the material must be washable and strong enough to
stand up to frequent laundering.
The white apron worn folded and tied at the waist
takes spills, splashes and other abuses. It should
be replaced daily - sooner if really dirty. The side
towel worn tucked into the apron strings performs
many useful functions, but mopping floors or shining
shoes is certainly not among them.
In an article some years ago in Taste Magazine, Barbara
Feret Schuman described the origin of the hat worn
by today's chefs as follows: The head cooks of ancient
Assyrian households were permitted to wear a tall
cloth headdress patterned after the crowns of their
royal masters. This distinction was intended to encourage
these important household servants to remain faithful
to their masters, who were ever fearful of poisoning.
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