4th
After coming across Iron Chef Michael Symon on the street just minutes ago, smoking a cigarette, it got me thinking about the prevalence of smoking amongst chefs.
Let me first be clear that I do not know any professional chefs. All of my knowledge about their world comes from a couple of seasons of Top Chef, one of Hell’s Kitchen, and various shows on the Food Network. But from what I’ve seen, it seems like most of them enjoy their “grits”.
Is it because of the high levels of stress required in their line of work?
That seems highly probable. It would also explain another prevalent quality among male chefs: baldness.
Is it to curb their appetite?
If I could make all kinds of delicious foods, I know it would be rather difficult for me to stop myself from hoarding it all.
There are several articles on the subject out there: http://www.google.com/search?q=smoking+chefs&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBF
In a forum for “The Naked Chef” Jamie Oliver, someone makes a good point about how smoking affects taste buds, something very important to their work.
With that in mind, do they smoke to handicap themselves? To make it even more challenging?
An intriguing topic.
The more I think about, it’s a lot like how most philosophers take tons of hallucinogens and ride giraffes.
What? You didn’t catch that part in Plato’s The Republic? Socrates did that shit all the time. Talk, wrestle 18 year olds, and take tons of hallucinogens and ride giraffes. That was him. Greatest mind in human history.
