TOQUES

From Dictionary.com:

toque (tōk)
n.

1. A woman's small, brimless, close-fitting hat.

2. A plumed velvet cap with a full crown and small rolled brim, worn in 16th-century France.

[French, from Spanish toca.]

A toque is a type of hat with a narrow brim or no brim at all. They were popular from the 13th to the 16th century in Europe, especially France. Now, it is primarily known as the traditional headgear for professional cooks.

A toque blanche (French for "white hat"), often shortened to toque, is a tall, round, pleated, starched white hat worn by chefs. The many folds on a toque blanche are believed to signify the many ways that an egg can be cooked[citation needed]. Many toques have exactly 100 pleats.

The toque most likely originated as the result of the gradual evolution of head coverings worn by cooks throughout the centuries. Their roots are sometimes traced to the casque a meche (stocking cap) worn by 18th-century French chefs. The colour of the casque a meche denoted the rank of the wearer. Boucher, the personal chef of the French statesman Talleyrand, was the first to insist on white toques for sanitary reasons. The modern toque is popularly believed to have originated with the famous French chefs Marie-Antoine Carême and Auguste Escoffier.