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A cook is a person employed to prepare food for consumption, whether in a restaurant or institution, for a caterer or in domestic service.
A fully qualified, experienced cook is sometimes referred to as a chef (French 'chief'), although within the professional kitchen, the term chef is reserved only for the executive chef or chef de cuisine (French 'kitchen chief', i.e. kitchen master).
A short order cook is a cook who prepares fast, easily-assembled meals to order, often working in a diner or cafe.
Training
Cooks may learn their trade through apprenticeship, particularly in smaller establishments and staffed households, often starting as a kitchen boy, but that lowest rank, as the name indicates traditionally filled by minors, doesn't have to lead to a cook's career. The top restaurants nowadays hire from the graduates of professional cooking courses at culinary schools; these almost always involve some form of apprenticeship as well. In general, most restaurants have a hierarchy of cooking staff.
Domestic polyvalence
When used of residential staff the word cook may refer to the head of the kitchen in a great house or to a cook-housekeeper, responsible for cleaning as well. See cook (servant).
See also
"Cook (profession)"