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A History Of The Chef’s Hat

Many of us might notice that a chef has a hat. Maybe one of you are asking on why do they wear one? There are number of different figurative hats, easily bounding between stirring, mincing and other cooking tasks. But chefs only wear one actual hat, and that’s an important distinction. That’s because the hat a chef wears says a lot about who they are, their style, their level of expertise and so much more.

 So where does this chef hat begin? Let me give you some trivia about this. Legend has it that even earlier than seventh century A.D., chefs in Assyria wore crown-like hats that differentiated them from other kitchen help. Why? It seems that kings were being poisoned left and right by indignant chefs, so in order to placate them and make them feel special (thus hopefully eliminating the desire to poison the leader), they were presented with a unique piece of headgear. Around this same time, chefs spent a great deal of time reading to learn new recipes and techniques. Since so few people at the time could read, chefs were considered learned men. Unfortunately, being smart wasn’t “in,” and many intellectuals were persecuted. Chefs sought refuge in the Greek Orthodox Church, where they donned the wardrobe of the monks, wearing robes and caps. Those caps later evolved into an early version of the chef hat.

  Let me answer some of your questions. So first of all, maybe one of you are asking yourself on what does a chef called their hats? Well let me give you some trivia, A chef’s hat is officially called a toque, which is Arabic for hat. While the term has existed for a few thousand years, the French popularized the word when referring to a chef’s hat, according to Culinary People. By the 1800s, the hat became known as the toque blanche, or white hat. So, I am expecting you to ask, why was white chosen? Well as I did my research,  As the legend goes, the personal chef of Charles Talleyrand, who served as the first French prime minister in 1815, believed that white was the most hygienic of all the colors. The Reluctant Gourmet uncovered a similar tale in which Antonin Carem, an early pioneer of the grande cuisine cooking style, felt that white helped purvey a sense of cleanliness in the kitchen.

 So maybe you are thinking if why do chef’s chose to wear a hat? If they can wear a hairnet or something rather than hat. Here’s some explanation about that: based on my research, In her book “Passion of a Foodie,” author Heidemarie Vos dispels the notion that hats were used simply to keep a chef’s hair out of his face or the food. Instead, long before the French adopted the hats, one popular origin story dates back to circa 146 BCE, when the Byzantine Empire invaded Greece. When the invasion forces landed, Greek chefs fled to nearby monasteries for protection, eventually wearing the garb of the monks to fit in. That included a large stovepipe hat. Even after the Byzantines were driven back, Greek chefs continued to wear the hats as a form of rebellion and a sign of solidarity. It’s perhaps that symbolism and sense of fraternity, Vos argued, that led other chefs, including the French, to adopt the hats in their own uniform.

If you have notice, a chef hat has pleats. A Pleated chef’s hats have a two-fold purpose. On the one hand, pleats add a certain dimension of fashion to the hat, instilling a certain class or professionalism in most restaurants. However, as the Reluctant Gourmet pointed out, pleats also serve a more subtle purpose. In the early days of the toque blanche, pleats would often represent how many recipes a chef had mastered. So, a chef with 100 pleats may know 100 different ways to boil an egg or prepare a chicken. While hats nowadays don’t symbolize quite the same thing, more pleats even if it’s just three or four still demonstrate a chef’s level of experience. Same with this a chef’s hat also has a different height. So what does it mean? Well, Much like with pleats, the significance of the hat’s height as changed rather drastically over the years. In the 1800s, the taller the hat was, the more important or knowledgeable the chef was. As the Reluctant Gourmet pointed out, Carem once reportedly wore a hat that was 18 inches tall – supported in part by pieces of cardboard – to demonstrate his role as the head of his kitchen. These days, though, most chefs wear hats that are only 9 to 12 inches tall. However, height still does play a role. In her book “Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession,” author Amy Trubek said that toque hats are usually preserved for kitchen elite and not prep cooks or dishwashers.

Today chef hat’s still symbolizes authority and knowledge, and few pieces of headgear are as recognizable as the traditional white hat that many chefs today still embrace as their own. While few still wear the traditional cloth hat.