Chefs, Cooks & Cigarettes

[Irishgirl]

A related possibility, which I will pull out of the air and offer almost entirely without empirical support, is that chefs tend to be more sensation-seeking than the average Joe. There are plenty of studies showing that smokers tend to rate higher than average on the "sensation-seeking" dimension on  personality assessment tools. My very limited personal experience would tend to support the view that chefs also tend to be more sensation-seeking than the average Joe -- more interested in pursuing and experiencing all sorts of thrills, whether pharmacological, sexual, travel, and so on. So it could be that there are a lot of smokers in the culinary world because smokers are sensation seekers, and sensation seekers are more likely to have a great interest in food.

←

You have just summarized the beginning of Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential". He does mention his addictive sensation-seeking attitude in the first part of his career. He is also a known avid smoker.

At the same time....I am not a smoker....and my mother is not either (she used to work graveyard shifts all the time). I am a chef, and have found that most chefs that smoke do it to handle their stress. It also depends on if you are an addictive personality to begin with. People handle stress in many ways....smoking is just one of them. And yes...it is a stressful job. I encourage my crew not to smoke....I am biased though....my grandfather died a horrible death of Lung Cancer. He suffered for two dreadful years. The doctors, when they opened him up to remove the tumour, took one look and then closed him back up again. IT WAS THAT BAD.

Anyway, smoking never actually gets rid of your stress, it just distracts you from thinking about it. Me, I just deal with every situation as it comes. Then a have a drink at the end of the night

[Patrick S]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, that may or may not be relevant to this discussion, is that many if not most smoking foodies would probably agree with me that the most satisfying time to smoke is after a meal. I quit smoking 3 years ago (after 15 years), and the desire for a cigarette after meals stayed around for a long time. I hear the same thing from virtually all of my friends and family who have quit -- the post-gustation desire for a smoke lingers longest and strongest, after most of the old triggers have faded.

What does that mean? I don't know, but like Richard Dreyfuss says as he's making a mountain out of mashed potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I have to think that "this means something."

[butter]

Coming into the kitchen industry late in life, and being a non-smoker, I feel out of place most of the time. However, on several occasions, I have felt a need to smoke. It started at culinary school when all the students would go outside in the alley for a break, some smoking some not. And now, at work, when I finish my shift, and leave the building via the alley, through the smoking line cooks. The smell of cigarettes is absolutely enticing. I'm even finding it interesting smelling the different brands of cigarettes. I have met other cooks that feel the same way. I tend to want to drink more alcohol, make my coffee stronger, and have more sex. Luckily, I have enough willpower to not take up smoking. In our kitchen, there are definitely more smokers than non. As I meet more and more cooks and chefs, I'm less convinced that smokers use more salt.

[Megan Blocker]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, that may or may not be relevant to this discussion, is that many if not most smoking foodies would probably agree with me that the most satisfying time to smoke is after a meal. I quit smoking 3 years ago (after 15 years), and the desire for a cigarette after meals stayed around for a long time. I hear the same thing from virtually all of my friends and family who have quit -- the post-gustation desire for a smoke lingers longest and strongest, after most of the old triggers have faded.

←

That's funny - I mentioned this thread to my mom (a former smoker) the other day, and she said the same thing, that smoking after a meal was uniquely satisfying. Maybe it's an oral fixation thing?

[jsolomon]

no smoke?  no break.

←

That's exactly how it is in my reserve Unit in the Army. So, I only smoke when I have the uniform on.

[jsolomon]

smoking after a meal was uniquely satisfying.  Maybe it's an oral fixation thing? 

←

Oh my... coffee and a cigarette? Better Than Sex (at least mediocre sex)

[suzilightning]

in college when i had to pull an allnighter i smoked.

when i was chambermaiding and had to be at work at 7 am - nope.

when i worked in kitchens and did split shifts back to smoking - as well as the kitchen beer and the free drink per shift( after cooking and/or washing dishes all shift i wanted nothing to do with food - something to being satiated just by the smell).

one of my best friends cooked for many years - hardest thing she did was quit smoking - especially after a meal. something like a circle completed.

johnnybird used to use cigs as a pick-me-up since he can't ingest caffeine without great harm to his system but since he has hit that BIG birthday he has given them up.

now i work late two nights a week but not around food and do not want a cig at all. when i get home i want a drink, 30 minutes to detox and to go to sleep.

i do think this was/is partly cultural( i grew up in the 60s-70s), partly a function of the late hours( a la megan) and partly one of the hardest habits to kick.

when i work with food for a long time (catering, etc) i want to drink or smoke but not eat - a new thread about the physicological affect of working with food?

[ghostrider]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned, that may or may not be relevant to this discussion, is that many if not most smoking foodies would probably agree with me that the most satisfying time to smoke is after a meal. I quit smoking 3 years ago (after 15 years), and the desire for a cigarette after meals stayed around for a long time. I hear the same thing from virtually all of my friends and family who have quit -- the post-gustation desire for a smoke lingers longest and strongest, after most of the old triggers have faded.

←

I am one of the oddballs who never found that to be true, as much as my smoker friends always talked about it. For me, the most satisfying time to smoke was with a pot of tea (which wasn't always immediately post-prandial) in recent years, & before that, when I was quaffing pints of ale.

I quit 2 years ago after 32 years of a 2-packs-daily habit. No post-gustation desire at all. The urge to smoke comes back strongest when I'm walking down an NYC sidewalk; I have no idea why.

My senses of smell & taste were always hyper-sensitive. And I smoked Gauloises for most of those years. (And still miss the taste. I couldn't abide the taste of US cigs; if I hadn't been able to get Gauloises, I'd probably have quit decades earlier.) Even then I could always smell aromas - food, garbage, a gas leak, skunk spray - a mile off that no one else in my crowd, smoker or not, picked up until we were virtually on top of the source. I haven't noticed any appreciable difference in sensitivity since I quit.

I do notice the aroma of smoke on smokers more readily now, but it was always evident to me when I smoked (as was my own Gauloise-infused aroma).

I'm sure there are statistical patterns to smoking & sensitivities, but there are also great differences between individuals.

BTW I am not a food professional, but a fairly serious home cook.