South Florida Food: Clothes Off My Back

I’ve been told that women love a man in uniform and heard rumors that they also love a man who can cook. It’s no wonder then that women swoon over guys in chef’s uniforms like guys in chef’s uniforms swoon over the likes of one Ms. Paula Deen. Ok, maybe there was some slight exaggeration in that last statement, but seriously, how is it that the Village People can have someone dressed up as an Indian Chief, but not a Chef? I guess he was seventh guy out and just missed the cut.

One thing that I have quickly learned in my short stint at culinary school is the importance and significance of a chef’s uniform. A traditional outfit consists of a chef’s coat, stylish black and white pants, a neckerchief (which is apparently a word) and of course the hat. If for whatever reason you have a hard time picturing this, just think back to the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.

Believe it or not, these articles of clothing aren’t just designed to be pieces of flair used to impress the ladies, in fact they were each designed nearly 200 years ago for helping chefs with specific functions in the kitchen. For instance, the chef’s coat is made of thick cotton to protect wearers from the heat in the kitchen and also from boiling liquids that happen to spill on you. And everyone knows that wearing cotton uniforms is an advantage, unless of course you are the New York Yankees. The coats are also double-breasted, meaning if you impress the aforementioned ladies with your cooking skills, but have a nasty stain on your coat, you simply reverse the buttoning of the coat and hide the stains. In your face Tide to-go pens…
Side-note: I got sized for chef coat earlier in the week and apparently a 6’2” 180 lb man wears a size Small chef coat. Who knew?

Now, let me take a step back and offer up my opinion on chef pants. They seriously look like something designed by the first person eliminated on Project Runway for trying to be too avant-garde with their design. The pants are usually black and white and have some kind of pattern reminiscent of a design found in a 3-D Magic Eye book. Apparently they work very well at hiding stains, but I am guessing that’s because whoever is looking at your pants is too busy suffering from a seizure to ever notice.

As for the neckerchief….yes I said neckerchief, this article of clothing is worn for the sole purpose of striking fear in anyone who dares cross the wearer. Not quite, it just catches neck-sweat from falling into your fettucine alfredo at the Olive Garden.

And that leaves us with the ever-popular chef hat. In the food world, your rank is visible to all by the style of your chef hat. For example, simple line-cooks wear short and squatty hats, pastry chefs wear baker’s caps, the French wear berets and could care less what anyone thinks of it and the celebrity chefs wear the super tall hats.

I’ve also learned that it is common for these hats to have 100 pleats, which signify the number of different ways a chef can cook an egg. I haven’t picked up my culinary uniform yet from school, but I am guessing that my hat will have three pleats in it. Four if you count sunny side-up and over easy as two different types of eggs.