Cook

A cook, or chef (料理人), is an individual skilled in preparing raw foodstuffs for consumption.

Since their skills are needed for virtually any enterprise, cooks may be found among pirates and other criminals, law enforcers such as the Marines, or any number of civilian establishments.

Overview


While basic cooking skills are common to most past adolescence, those specifically recognized as cooks are generally more skilled than the average, and may have professional training. As part of an organization or business, cooks are expected to provide most if not all meals, regardless of who else might possess cooking skills.

Since most of the world consists of ocean, sea cooks (海のコック) that primarily serve aboard ships are highly prominent. In addition to standard duties, these cooks are expected to efficiently ration and use a ship's limited resources during voyages, and maintain nutrition for the entire crew. If the ship frequently explores new areas, they may also analyze and catalogue which plants and animals are safe to eat (particularly on the Grand Line, where even the most innocuous-seeming species can harbor deadly poison).

Given the general unpredictability of sea travel, experienced cooks tend to look down on those who waste or mistreat food, and are often reluctant to throw away any food materials that have not become genuinely, dangerously inedible.

Head Chef
A Head Chef (料理長) is the leader of a group of chefs in a single establishment. They are in charge of the other cooks within the organization, having the highest authority within its kitchen. Head chefs normally have exceptional culinary skills which are far superior to the cooking skills of normal chefs.

Known head chefs are Zeff of Baratie, Thatch of the fourth division of the Whitebeard Pirates, Cosette of the Germa Kingdom, the WCI 31 of Whole Cake Island and non-canonically Jessica of G-8.

Large scale institutions with multiple kitchens can also have multiple head chefs, as seen with the WCI 31, consisting of the thirty-one head chefs of Whole Cake Island.

Executive Chef
An Executive Chef (総料理長) is a rank that may be assigned to a chef who oversees everything in cases where an organization has multiple head chefs. The only known executive chef in the series is Streusen of the Big Mom Pirates. Streusen was able to give precise commands to all his subordinate chefs of the Big Mom Pirates to prepare a gigantic wedding cake of brilliant culinary craftsmanship without personally making it.

Sous Chef
A Sous Chef (副料理長) is essentially the second-in-command of a group of chefs of a single establishment, under the Head Chef. Sanji was the sous chef of Baratie, under Zeff. Sanji used to bicker with Zeff and the many other chefs there, which made it hard for many to believe that he was ever connected to the restaurant. Still, Sanji was greatly respected by his colleagues there, a sentiment shared both ways. Trained by Zeff himself, Sanji proved to be a great chef, and once intended to succeed Zeff as Head Chef of Baratie, although he wanted so more out of a duty of repaying Zeff for saving his life.

Other Specialties and Positions
There are other types of chefs, including those which choose to specialize in certain fields, examples being artisans and pâtissiers.

An artisan is one who is able to not only make delicious treats, but also arrange it in a certain way to make it pleasing to the eye, like a piece of art. Though aided by their Devil Fruit powers, Charlotte Perospero and Cracker both claim to be artisans in their field of candy and biscuits respectively.

As for pâtissier's, or pastry chefs, they specialize in making baked sweets, such as cakes. Charlotte Pudding claims to be a master in chocolate, while Charlotte Chiffon is specialized with cakes, specifically chiffon cakes.

Wanze is a chef who specialized in ramen, though his method of preparing it is considered disgusting by all, as he ingests flour and exudes it as noodles through his nose, which he cuts with his nose hair. None who see how he creates his dishes are willing to eat it, and along with his fighting style of using ramen and cooking utensils as fighting, Sanji saw Wanze's wasteful nature of food as unworthy of being a cook at all.

Hatchan's dream, alongside Kuroobi and Chew, was to open a takoyaki stand. After the arrest of the Arlong Pirates, Hatchan, being the sole escapee, was able to live up to this dream, becoming a chef specializing in takoyaki.

Ganzo is a chef who specializes in oden, with his grandson Tobio helping him. It was part of their dream to serve oden to the people of the world.

In One Piece
After the Syrup Village Arc, the Straw Hat Pirates met Johnny and Yosaku. Yosaku was sick from scurvy, so Nami instructed Usopp and Luffy to make soup to cure Yosaku. Because the crew had no cooking experience, and would have no hope of surviving on the Grand Line without one, Luffy decided to find a chef for his ship (despite initially wanting a musician).



As Luffy has proven, the lack of a proper cook during seafaring trips can have a disastrous effect: while their cook Sanji was absent, Luffy tried to cook for the retrieval team in lieu of Nami's tendency to charge everyone for her cooking, only for his lack of culinary skills to set the kitchen on fire and create something completely inedible, and his poor rationing skills wasted an entire week's of supplies, thus causing them to starve during their trip.

There are certain cooks who specialize in only one type of food, making it the focal point of their respective establishments: Hatchan runs a takoyaki stand, Wanze specializes in ramen (in a rather disgusting method of preparation), and Charlotte Pudding is a chocolatier for her cafe.

The Spade Pirates did not have an official cook (one of their self-admitted weaknesses), but they did have Banshee prepare their meals for them, thus were able to get by.

Trivia

 * Long John Silver, main antagonist of Treasure Island and arguably the most famous pirate in (English-language) fiction, was introduced as the cook of the story's focal crew. In fact, The Sea Cook was the novel's originally-planned title.

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