experience"—which by itself translates to "lots of work and no
money"—are quickly tagged as FNG (Fucking New Guy), or Mel for mal
carne (bad meat). Army, short for "army cook", or the classic but elegant
shoe, short for "shoemaker", are the perennial insults for a lousy or
"slophouse" cook.
There are the usual terms of endearment, all perfectly acceptable in
casual conversation between cooks: motherfucker (a compliment),
cocksucker, sunofbeech, dipshit, scumbag, scum-sucker, dumb-fuck, rat-
bastard, slackjaw, idiota, bruto, animale, asesino, mentiroso, whining
little bed-wetter, turd, tortuga, strunze, salaud, salaupard, chocha
podrida, pendejo, silly cunt, seso de pollo, spazz, goofball, bucket-head,
chucha, papi-chulo, sweet-cheeks, cupcakes, love-chunks, culero, shit-
stain, cum-gargler, and so on. Asshole, strangely, is serious, to be used
only when genuinely angry, and any expression involving a person's
wife/mother/girlfriend/boyfriend or family member directly (with the
notable exception of motherfucker) is strictly off-limits. You may well
have seen your grill man's wife jacking off motorists for spare change on
West Street—but you don't talk about it. Ever.
A lot of cook talk is transplanted from the fringes of military jargon.
One doesn't carry, one humps. To be set up is to be squared away. He
sucks it up and endures, digs in for the rush, takes a bad hit if one station
is disproportionately busy—is simply fucked or fucked in the ass when
things go badly . . . at which point, one's buddy hopefully steps in and
bails you out, covers your ass, saves your bacon.
Aspirins are called crunchies because we eat them like candy. Finger
cots are condoms, pronounced with Spanish inflection. The nail on which
completed orders are spindled is the spike. Any round metal container
placed in a water bath is a bain (pronounced bayn) from bain-marie
pronounced baahn maree), or simply a crock. The life we live is la puta
vida, "this bitch of a life", and one might well bemoan a sorry state of
affairs with a cry of Porca miseria! (Pig of misery!) or Que dolore!,