Whenever Chef Pierre Dousson is in the kitchen he has many things on his mind, and one thing on his head: the tall white pleated hat called a toque. That 9 inches of stiff paper or starched cloth ...

You don't see them used as often in the postmodern world, but traditional chef hats were tall for a reason. Turns out, the ...

Images of chef’s outfits from the late 1800s show what looks like a toque, but the height of the hats became shorter with each decade. “ The Chef’s Uniform ," another journal article, dove ...

In the early days of French cuisine, the number of pleats were intended to represent the number of recipes a chef had mastered for a given food, like egg or chicken. Having a hat with 100 pleats ...