If you became obsessed with The Bear in the summer of 2022 and started yelling, "Yes, chef!" every time you needed to answer in the affirmative, you might just be in the right place. It's estimated that there are about 172,370 chefs working in the U.S., but do you know how many have excellent taste in humor?
I'd bet that most of them, especially after seeing the kinds of memes the For The Chefs Instagram page has cooked up. If you want to see for yourself, scroll down and see the funniest and most relatable pics from that page. And upvote the memes you like most so we know which ones you'd rather have for dessert instead of ice cream after a succulent meal!
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The best comment at the time was did Turkey send a hit man to the olympics
Old style pistol method. Free hand anchored, either on the hip or in a pocket. He has more going on than the casual observer would realize.
Chefs and cooks really are a different kind of breed. Not only because of the stressful and demanding nature of their job, but because it takes a certain kind of person to get into this line of work. As Anthony Bourdain described in his now-cult classic bestseller Kitchen Confidential, working in a kitchen means you belong to a subculture.
"We're used to doing what we do in private, behind closed doors. We're used to using language that many would find... well... offensive, to say the least. We probably got into the business in the first place because interacting with normal people in a normal workspace was impossible or unattractive to us. Many of us don't know how to behave in public—and don't care to find out."
I wandered into a bar after the kitchen closed, realized it, and turned to leave. Owner's wife yelled at me for leaving hungry, stomped back into the kitchen, and returned with enough fries for the entire town. "Grill's down, but the fryers ain't. Eat up!" Lol
If you have ever watched Hell's Kitchen, you have at least some idea of how fast-paced and stress-inducing a chef's job can be. While the conflicts and shouting are undoubtedly played up for entertainment, there is some truth in the show about how professional kitchens operate.
Working in a kitchen is not for the weak. As a 2023 survey by Cozymeal shows, 44% of American chefs say that working in a restaurant has impacted their mental health negatively. 71% of the respondents said they have dealt with depression, 48% said their job has given them a sleeping disorder, and 42% even reported chronic pain as a result of working in a kitchen.
Pastry chefs do not mind giving a recipe because they know even most good chefs do not have the finesse or patience to get it right.
When we see such statistics, it's easy to understand why people have been talking about 'toxic restaurant culture' more and more. In the past, those who wanted to become chefs had to pass certain initiation tests. For Chef Simon Rogan, it was sandpapering oyster shells and then squeezing the juice out of a box of lemons.
"Thinking about it now, I'm sure it was an initiation to the kitchen that said: 'This is as good as it gets. You've got to earn your stripes. It's gonna be hard. We're gonna push you,'" he recalled to CNN Travel. But nowadays, people are asking: is such brutality and dog-eat-dog mentality really necessary?
I was using a mandolin to slice potatoes for an au gratin thing. Started out as a vegetarian dish but by the time I put it in the oven it no longer qualified.
At this point, burnout is almost the norm in the restaurant world. San Antonio area chef Stephen Paprocki says it's a crisis. "We talk about burnout like it's a buzz word, but in food service it's actually trauma from long hours, verbal abuse, no benefits, high turnover, and that grinds people down."
When he passed out from a heart attack after a 100-plus workweek, Paprocki decided it was enough. He launched a nonprofit, Cafe86sa, to advocate for the mental health of workers in the food sector. At the end of the day, Paprocki believes that chefs are givers, but first they have to give to themselves.
Bourdain echoed that sentiment in Kitchen Confidential, too. According to him, the best part of cooking for a living is enjoying "the instant gratification of making something good with one's hands—using all one's senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure."
How many culinary-gifted pandas do we have here? Let yourselves be known in the comments and tell us if your time in the kitchen reflects these memes from For The Chefs. And if you're in the mood for more chuckles at the expense of chefs everywhere, check out another one of our posts about hospitality workers!
Not a server - but I work in hospitality. Sometimes, green tissue isn't enough.
Smaller ones are all the rage now here in Siberia (our record high for July is 41.6°C (106.9°F))
As someone who is no longer supposed to eat pasta, I can get behind this. Especially if the sauce is heavy on the meat.
I like my steak medium-well and it's often undercooked for me, but I always cut it first to check because I understand lots of people don't want to overcook it. To eat that much of it and then send it back? That's just rude. Surprised they didn't ask for brand new ones!
I like the short crispy fries best but I would never have to gall to ask for ONLY those. That's crazy to me.
"The latest TikTok trend" = we charge $50 for $3 worth of neatly arranged random leftovers to bait people who wear labubus on their bags
I used to just tell the chefs that I'm 99% convinced that I'm blind and can they remember which shelf they put said item on. If they got grumpy I would bring them some ice cold drinks as an apology.
For those who are confused : it takes maybe 3 minutes get an order from a couple, they are easy to entertain, they focus on what you're saying. A table of ten can be an absolute mess, they just talk and shout, zero attention. Takes forever to take the order and you will have another tables to attend. When the food arrives and colleagues are helping run the hot plates, they will pay even less attention. You go like "I have here the steak medium well" and you will just have someone saying "I'm having the pasta"... "Sure, I'll just run this steak back to the kitchen and bring your f*****g pasta" They keep ordering drinks individually, so once you get someone a beer, there's someone out wine and it just goes on. Also, around here it doesn't matter how big your table is, everyone is allowed to have an individual bill. Splitting the bill for 10 people is time consuming also charging them at table with a slowish card reader takes forever. I get 10 times more tips and good reviews from small tables.
I remember this little resort, we didnt' have AC, just open screens along the top of the walls. It was over a hundred on the griddle by 8am.
Heh. I do kitchen work for fun at Scouting events. There was one time we had a little down time between lunch and dinner. Another of the cooks came running back in - "Hey guys, there's an entire jamboree going on over the hill!"
A vegetarian that likes the taste of the pasts and sauce, nothing confusing here.
