Chef Hat History

Writen by Jason Gluckman

Chef hats have a history that can be traced as far as the beginning of the centuries. Although the real origin is not really known, it does go back a long way. It is a popular belief that the chefs in the courts of Iran and the nearby nations wore the chef hats even in the B.C. times, although for reasons that might be different from now. However, the shape and sizes must have considerably undergone some drastic changes since then. Even with all the noticeable changes, the chef hat is still being worn by all the chefs and cooks worldwide to avoid stray hair from falling into the dish being prepared allowing contamination of the dish.

Tradition indicates that the number of pleats on the headdress indicates the experience of the chef. Of course, this means the head chef, who is the one with the maximum experience gets to wear a hat with a hundred pleats. Although a hundred pleats are not found on a head chef's hat these days, these hats do contain the most number of pleats still. The number of pleats also indicates the number of ways the chef can prepare a dish as so any head chef worthy of the title must be allowed to wear a head chef hat in honor of the knowledge possessed.

A chef's hat worn these days is mostly a covering for the head than to depict any other symbolism. They also come in different sizes, heights and shapes depending on who would be wearing them. All the cooks, chefs, and others involved in the kitchen work are supposed to wear them without fail - taking hygiene into account more than anything else.

History indicates toque to have been worn by both men and women as a head covering while cooking. French, Italian, Spanish, German and other countries adopted a unique style by the early 16th century. Although the basic usage remained the same, to cover the head to avoid any stray hairs from falling into the dish being prepared, unique styles had come into vogue and were very distinguishable from one another. They were also named different in different languages, although they are all popular currently as the chef's hats.

Starched cloth and wool chef hats came into picture in the early 17th century in many countries. These are still popular as along with keeping the hair in place, they also absorb the heat and sweat caused due to the heat in the kitchens. Early 19th century saw a revolution in the chef's hats. Chefs dealing with various food preparations ended up putting on different caps to be distinguished in their areas of specializations.

Even with all the advancements in the history of chef hats, they still distinguish the chefs and the cooks even when they are currently made from paper and fiber instead of cloth. Cooks and chefs all over the world wear these hats regardless of the history and the tradition, which resulted in evolution of the chef hats.

Chef Hats provides detailed information about chef hats, chef hat history, and more. Chef Hats is affiliated with Sirloin Steak.

Saving Time In The Kitchen

Writen by Dee Marie

I am a big advocate of saving time where I can. Over the years I have learned lots of kitchen shortcuts and ways to save time in cooking. These techniques have translated to saving money because we are able to eat more of our meals at home. Here are some of my favorite time saving techniques.

1. Cook dinner at breakfast. I know this sounds strange but it really does save time. By cooking your dinner in the morning, you will not have the evening rush of "what to cook" which many times translates into "where can I order out" because you don't have time to make a home cooked meal. Prepare your dinner meal while you are fixing breakfast, and then put it in the refrigerator. At dinner time, you will only have to reheat and a home cooked meal is on the table in a jiffy.

2. Learn to use your crockpot. There are many wonderful and nutritious meals that you can make in a crockpot. Place all ingredients into your crockpot in the morning, and then by dinner time you will have a healthy and delicious meal ready and waiting. It is almost like having someone cook your dinner for you.

3. On really busy days plan to use paper plates and plastic ware. It makes cleaning up a breeze. Even the kids can get involved with throwing out the plates when they are done eating. I love to combine this method with crockpot meals, because then you have only one dish to wash, the crockpot!

4. Cook two meals at the same time and then freeze one for use later on. I do this strategy on the weekends. Cook once but eat twice. Double your favorite meal when cooking such as make 2 pans of lasagne, 2 batches of pasta sauce, etc. Put one in a freezer safe container and you'll have a homemade meal ready to go.

5. Rely on your bread machine. Many people have a bread machine they rarely use. I use mine nearly every day! Put your ingredients in the machine in the morning, and set the timer to have the bread done about 30 minutes before dinner. You'll gain 2 benefits; a wonderful loaf of bread and a house that smells like you've cooked all day.

Dee Marie is a freelance writer who enjoys saving time and money. You can find more money saving tips and ideas at http://notmadeofmoney.com.

Cookbook Crooks They Cost How Much No Way Top 10 Ecookbook Review

Writen by Jim Hart

Being the CEO of a small publishing firm specialized in real estate and business gives me a clear perspective into how information products should be priced based on production and marketing roll out costs. I always have my eyes on the competition and this is especially true for people who are promoting ebooks, which are electronic files that can be downloaded to your computer. From a publishing perspective, ebooks are a great way to distribute information to people who need it because production and roll out costs are virtually eliminated and give people direct access to the information products they want and need.

What blows my mind is the price of ebooks. I have seen ebooks priced from $25.00 to over $100.00 and, in my humble opinion, this is an outrage. I understand people are paying for the "information" but outside the cost to develop an ebook, it is pure-profit mechanism and nobody can convince me that paying these outlandish prices for an electronic file makes sense. I have never seen an ebook worth more than a few dollars max….

Take cookbooks for example. I have seen e-cookbooks for sale online and around EBay priced at $14.95 to more than $24.95 and I could never figure out why anybody would pay that much for an e-cookbook without at least being able to review the recipes first. As fate would have it, I was exposed to a "turnkey business opportunity" online that offered me to buy the resale rights to a wide variety of "e-products" and the offer was so good I had to invest just because curiosity was killing the cat. And in this bundle of e-products I found a directory of e-cookbooks… the same cookbooks people are trying to sell online for over $15.00 each. My staff and I examined all of the 50 or so ebooks contained in the program and I have to tell you, most of these were a joke and no way worth the money they were asking for them. In fact, some of them were so bad, so full of misspells, so poorly laid out that I would be embarrassed to give them away. Out of that group of e-cookbooks, we found about 10 that were qualified to sell on our site.

So we rated these top-10 cookbooks using a 5-star rating system ranging from 3 to 5-stars. After carefully considering our costs, I decided to price the e-cookbooks at a-buck-a-star. So a 3 star book would cost $3.00, 4 star, $4.00 and so on…. The max price on an e-cookbook is $5.00 and I think that there is one priced that high… What can I say? I have high standards for quality.

If you are interested in taking a peek at these top-best e-cookbooks, check them out at the link below, in the e-cookbook section on the page menu... Why would a real estate and business publisher offer e-cookbooks? The answer is pretty simple… entrepreneurs have to eat too, right? Besides…we had some extra space on the site… There are freebies there too.

Thanks for reading!

Copyright © 2006 James W. Hart, IV All Rights reserved

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