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Kitchen Humor

30K views 69 replies 47 participants last post by  ferfigueroa 
#1 ·
I've worked in a few kitchens, and so far, I've seen all kinds of jokes and pranks pulled on the proverbial 'new guy.' You know the one. Doesn't really know his way around a kitchen, can't really pick up a knife, and can't tell cayenne pepper from pepper corns. So what have you guys asked this guy to find? What did you make him do?

I've made this guy drain the hot water from the coffee maker that's got a tap in the wall. He got through 16 qts of water before we told him to stop running up the water bill. I've also asked him to get plastic bags and collect air samples from the refrigerators to send off to the CDC. I've had one find me cooking water, and another looked for a bacon stretcher.

I know I'm not the only A-hole that pulls these shenanagins, so what are you stories?
 
#6 ·
I once sent a guy to the butcher looking for Kendoslavian Sausages. Called ahead and had the butcher play along.
Another time, I had a young Commis working to make sure that he removed the teeth from a Cornish Hen.
The classics are the search for things like the bacon stretcher, the noodle stretcher, the pickle slicer, the jar of steam, the butter clarifier, and such.
 
#7 ·
It all depends...........

If the newbie is well mannered and not a jerk I tend to avoid all practical jokes--usually the kitchen needs grunt work done, and not an hour wasted looking for a sky-hook, a stove extension, or the special seasoning salt for the steam table.

Now, if the new guy is a blithering jerk, a know-it-all, or a brown-noser, I tend to get a bit, uh..."creative"

To knock the guy(or gals in a few instances) down a few notches, my favorite is to get an egg, blow it hollow, run a length of butcher's twine through it, and attach it to the back of the schmuck's apron. Nothing funnier than someone with a swollen head giving orders to Sous and line cooks with an egg dangling between his legs...

If they're truly gullible you can get them to make electricity: When boiling eggs in slighly acidulated water in an aluminum pot, you place a copper wire in the water with the other end on a light bulb, and the butt of the lightbulb on the pot. Betcha didn't know that!

An for the truly space cases, the ones you know won't last the week, I get them to clean out the fryer "The easy way"

Now you just need two lighly beaten eggwhites, but the schmucks almost always figure on more is better and get a dozen's worth. You clear a consomme with eggwhites, right? So, use the same priciple to clean the oil in the fryer. And the schmucks dump the whole thing into the smoking hot fryer. Within seconds, "Swamp thing", a huge eggwhite souffle, crawls out of the fryer, inflating at incredible speed and dribbling hot oil all over the place. The terrified look on the schmuck's face is indescribable, but then, so is the clean-up.......................
 
#8 ·
Ok I always do this to the new dishwashers.....it is called a "pepper bomb". Take a dry saute pan and place it on high heat and add whatever spicy items you can find in the kitchen....I usually just use cayenne pepper, black pepper, ground cumin, and whatever other spices I think will work. Put them in the pan and let the mixture cook until it starts to burn and gets nice and smokey. Make sure the pan is extremely hot and immediately take it to the dishwasher and ask him to spray the pan out (get away as fast as you can.) As soon as the water hits the pan all that steam carries the mixture in the air and into the poor kids nose and throat. It sounds mean but it is quite funny to watch as long as you don't get hit by the cloud too! Just to be safe I always make sure he doesn't have asthma or anything before I do it! I would love to see some videos of people doing this to their kitchen staff!:lol:
 
#11 ·
Stop it! I'm laughing so hard my back hurts about making electricity. I thought I heard 'em all. My favorite is still the guys who gave an ice sculpture to the new dishwasher after a wedding. They told him to run it through the dishwasher (3 section Hobart with dry cycle) and then put it in the freezer so they could use it for another wedding. The guy almost walked out because he was afraid they'd fire him when it melted.
 
#15 ·
My personal favorite was sending the new guy to get the patio furniture de-icer from the basement, except there was no basement and we didn't have a patio. There was also the standby which is use a trash bag to take the air out of the walk-in, hey something in there smells bad,.... take this trash bag. And there's my "you're pissing me off and I want you to get out of my hair" fall back, which is go inventory the straws.
 
#18 ·
one of the restaurants i worked at had a daily carvery sun - sat.

there was a hot carvery unit out in the restaurant itself and right beside it was a bain marie for all the veg and potatoes, so that people could get their preferred cut of roast meat from the chef at the carvery and help themselves to veg, potatoes and gravy at the bain marie.

we usually had 2 different types of potato, 4/5 different vegetables and gravy for the carvery veg. one particular day a staff member from the front of house said to me that my deep fried baton parsnips were going down well with the customers and could she have some more because people were piling the parsnips on their plates thinking that they were chips :lol:
 
#19 ·
We had one know it all kid. We were doing live maine lobsters for a special. We told him how expensive they were and that he was to cook them off for the Chef, and of course the Chef would be very upset if they were cooked improperly. We then told him that he had to add a few to a large pot of water and stir vigorously because if they turned red then they were over-cooked and the Chef would have his a**! Precious.
 
#21 ·
I need you to get me a can of elbow grease, or a bucket of steam have always been my favorite. I once got duck eggs at a local asian market, I didn't know they had unborn ducklings inside of them, I brought them back to the shop and was going to make myself a nice duck egg omelet for lunch, imagine my horror when I crack the egg open and find the baby duck inside. I of course didn't want to be the only one of my staff to experience this so I had four different people on four different occasions crack one of the eggs for me. It was a really fun day.
 
#22 ·
Also another prank I like to pull is to take sour cream and smear it on the back of a handle to a reach in or a deli unit, I then watch my cook or sous open the reach in or deli unit ending up with the sour cream all over their hand I then ask them "playing with your meat again?" or something wise to that effect.

I once had a server who was always trying to upsell to get a bigger tip I took a quarter and threw it on the grill for about 10 minutes, then took a pair of tongs and threw it on the ground, the server walked into the kitchen a moment later at which time I pointed out the coin on the floor, it was really funny and very cruel watching them burn their finger picking up the coin.

I once got a server to eat a cod fish eye after making fumet telling them that I had gotten in beluga caviar for a special and I really wanted them to try it so they could sell it to the guests, it was funny but having to mop up his vomit and getting it from my boss later was not so fun.
 
#23 ·
Pouring vinegar into someone's drink left sitting around. A paste of cayenne pepper spread over cookies which have been pilfered. Chocolate dipped garlic or crisco left sitting on a plate for someone to steal.
 
#26 ·
The night crew would occationally put a few of the metal mixing bowls up high on a shelf so you have to reach up for it, and they would fill it to the rim w/ water. You naturally tip the edge when taking it off the shelf.....Splash!! Also, they will fill w/ water the 6 oz ladels which hang high from the utensil rack. Very nice.
 
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