Trick Me – Kelis
One of my fondest memories from working in professional kitchens comes from a small hotel hidden in the woods. We were a team of eleven cooks in total: one chef, two sous chefs, chef de parties, cooks, students, and interns. During prep, the radio was always on in the background. It was part of the rhythm of the kitchen, almost as important as the chopping boards and sharp knives.
At a certain point during the afternoon prep, this song came on. And something shifted. You could feel the energy change. The kitchen suddenly felt lighter.
I was working in the pastry corner that day, tucked away in my own little station, focused on desserts while everyone else worked through sauces, mise en place, and prep for dinner service. When the song started, I found myself doing a little dance without even realizing it.
Then I looked up. Every single person in the kitchen was moving. Not full choreography or anything dramatic, just small movements. A shoulder bouncing to the beat. Someone swaying while slicing vegetables. A cook tapping a spoon against a pan like it was part of the rhythm. Even the chef was moving along while checking stock on the stove.
I remember smirking to myself. There was something beautiful about seeing everybody focused on what they loved while enjoying the music at the same time.
Looking back, those moments were never just about music. They were about feeling part of something bigger. Some of my strongest memories from professional kitchens are not only about food, but about the funny kitchen jokes that made long shifts, pressure, and hard days feel lighter.
Because kitchens are strange places. Hard places. But also places where people become family.
Kitchen Humor Isn’t Random
From the outside, kitchens can look intense. People shouting, pans flying, tickets printing endlessly, heat everywhere and stress building by the second. And honestly, that part is true.
Professional kitchens run on pressure. You work long hours and spend more time with your coworkers than with your own family. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the same people every day, during good days and terrible ones. During breakups, burnout, family problems, stress, exhaustion, and moments when life outside the kitchen feels heavier than anything happening inside. For many cooks and chefs, kitchens become a second home.
A lot of people in hospitality come from difficult backgrounds. Broken homes. Complicated family situations. Feeling like they never really fit anywhere. Then suddenly you enter a kitchen. And for the first time, there’s structure. There’s chaos, yes, but there’s also belonging.
You learn to rely on each other. And somewhere in between all that pressure, humor becomes part of the glue. That’s why funny kitchen jokes exist in almost every professional kitchen around the world. They’re not random, they’re culture.
Funny Kitchen Jokes
We once had a student cook working with us. I was still a student myself at the time. One day, someone convinced him he could earn one hundred euros if we smashed five eggs on his head. Yes, I know, the logic was already questionable. But money talks, especially when you’re young.
After some convincing, and after physically showing him the cash, he finally agreed. The whole crew was in on it. We lined up five eggs. The chef stepped forward and cracked the first one on his head. Egg yolk running down his face. Then a waiter came by and smashed number two. One of the student waitresses joined in with number three. The sous chef stepped up and cracked number four. At this point, the student was laughing too. He already saw himself spending the money.
But after the fourth egg, the sous chef calmly picked up the fifth egg… and placed it back with the rest. Then everyone simply returned to work. like nothing happened. Meanwhile, the chef was literally on the floor laughing.
The student stood there covered in egg, confused, slightly angry, trying to understand what was happening. “Where’s the fifth egg?” The sous chef looked at him and simply said: “There isn’t one.” And then it clicked.
The joke was never about the eggs. It was about the number five. After the initial frustration passed, he laughed too and that mattered. Because looking back, it wasn’t really about humiliating someone. It was about trust. You don’t play those kinds of funny kitchen jokes on someone you dislike. You play them on someone who belongs.
Why Kitchens Joke So Much
People sometimes think kitchen humor is cruel and yes, from the outside, it can absolutely look that way. But there’s a reason it exists.
In kitchens, humor becomes pressure relief. During service, there is no pause button. Tickets keep coming, mistakes need fixing immediately and the timing of every plate matters. One person slowing down affects everyone. When restaurants are full, stress can build fast, very fast. That’s why jokes become part of survival, it is to break the tension, they humanize hierarchy.
Suddenly the chef isn’t just “the chef.” He becomes someone who also went through the same jokes when he started. Someone who understands what it feels like to be new. It creates bonding. A “You’re one of us now” message. And honestly, some of the strongest friendships I’ve ever seen came from people surviving kitchens together.
Floating Sweet Potatoes
At one restaurant where I worked, we made crisps from large orange sweet potatoes every day. Fresh batches, right before dinner service, because the fresher they were, the better the crunch.
One day, my chef and sous chef decided to prank one of the newer cooks. He had experience in kitchens, but he had never really worked with sweet potatoes before. So they convinced him of two things.
First, that sweet potatoes were called “Miri’s,” named after a waitress called Miriam. Second, that there were two kinds. Floating sweet potatoes and sinking sweet potatoes. Now, just to clarify. All sweet potatoes sink. Especially the large ones we used.
The chef told him that the best crisps only came from floating sweet potatoes and that he needed to check them before slicing. So, he did. He filled a sink with water and dropped them in and with no surprise he watched them sink. And immediately went to the chef to complain that the supplier had delivered the wrong ones again. The chef nodded seriously saying to him that he would speak to the supplier.
This continued for weeks, every day and on every delivery. Until eventually, the cook became genuinely frustrated. The chef then suggested he call the supplier himself. The supplier, completely in on the joke, listened patiently while he complained about receiving “sinking Miri’s.”
Then he burst out laughing and the truth came out. Luckily, the cook laughed too. In fact, he said afterward he planned to use that same joke later in his own career. That’s how kitchen traditions survive, joke get passed down from cook to cook, just like recipes. But slightly more ridiculous.
The Joke That Backfired
Then there was the joke that didn’t work or maybe worked too well. We had a third-year student working with us, a hard worker and a general good guy. Almost at the end of his internship before moving to another restaurant.
We decided to send him on the classic mission, getting a salt sieve. For anyone wondering, a salt sieve does not exist. The story was simple.
We told him we accidentally oversalted a soup and needed the sieve to strain some of the salt out. We also told him we had loaned it to a nearby restaurant. That’s another classic kitchen move. Restaurants close to each other often play along. You send someone to another kitchen and they send them somewhere else. And the poor person spends half the day chasing something that isn’t real.
So, he left to get the salt sieve and we waited. After an hour and a half passed, we were getting confused, the other restaurant was only two minutes away. I decided to called him but I got no answer. Then I called again, again nothing. At the third time he picked up. Drunk as a pirate. Apparently, he had recognized the joke immediately because someone had done it at a previous restaurant he worked in. Instead of falling for it, he walked into a nearby bar, ordered rum, and waited for us to call. I remember laughing so hard, not because we tricked him, but because he tricked us right back. That one backfired beautifully and honestly, I respected him more for it
Where Humor Stops Being Funny
Of course, there’s a line and kitchens know that too. Not every joke lands. Sometimes people misunderstand the culture and sometimes someone takes it personally. And sometimes chefs step in before things go too far.
Because there is a difference between joking and bullying, good kitchens know that difference. I’ve seen people join kitchens who didn’t understand the environment. Some left quickly, not because they were bad cooks but because the pressure, honesty, and directness of kitchen culture wasn’t for them.
Professional kitchens can be harsh, very honest, very direct, especially old-school kitchens. Chefs yell because mistakes matter and when things go wrong during service, there is often no time for calm explanations.
I got yelled at too. But one of my first chefs explained something important to me. When a chef snaps during service, it usually isn’t personal. It’s the pressure, the speed, the feeling that everything has to keep moving like a machine. And if one part slows down, the entire system feels it.
That doesn’t excuse bad behavior but it explains where it comes from. Over time, I learned that I didn’t want to become that kind of chef myself. There was a period when I also raised my voice when things went wrong. But quickly, I realized that screaming rarely fixes mistakes, communication and teaching do.
Explaining afterward matters more than yelling in the moment and humor helps a great deal too. Because kitchens need release, without it, the pressure becomes too heavy.
What Kitchens Really Teach You
Looking back, these moments taught me something important.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Work hard, take pride in what you do and strive for perfection with realizing that you can’t be perfect every time. But don’t forget to laugh.
We have a saying in the Netherlands: “Lachen is gezond.” Meaning, laughing is healthy. And I truly believe that, especially in kitchens. Humor keeps people connected. It turns coworkers into teammates and teammates into family.
Because behind the pressure, the shouting, the speed, and the heat, kitchens are still full of people trying to get through the day together. And sometimes, the funniest memories are the ones you remember the longest.
One Last Trick
Kitchens may run on knives, fire, timing, and pressure. But most of the time, they survive on laughter. And if someone ever asks you to fetch a salt sieve, walk a lobster outside, or check if sweet potatoes float…
Just smile. Because chances are, you’re already part of the family. And that might be the best trick of all.
Yohan