Toque
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.
Encyclopedia
- For the rhythm associated with a specific orisha in the Santería religion, see toque .
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.
Etymology
The word has been known in
English since 1505. It derives from the Medieval
French toque , presumably from the old
Spanish toca "woman's headdress," possibly from
Arabic *
taqa, from Old Persian
taq "
veil, shawl."
Culinary use
A
toque blanche , 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. 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 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 popularily believed to have originated with the famous French chefs
Marie-Antoine Carême and Auguste Escoffier.
Justice
- A toque was the traditional headgear of various French magistrates.
- A low type in black velvet, called mortier , was used by the président à mortier, president of a parlement , and of the members of two of the highest central courts, cour de cassation and cour des comptes.
Academic
The pleated, low, round hat worn in French universities—the equivalent of the
mortarboard or tam at British and American universities—is also called a toque.
Heraldry
In the Napoleonic era, the French first empire replaced the
coronets of traditional heraldry with a rigorously standardized system of toques, reflecting the rank of the bearer. Thus a Napoleonic Duke used a toque with 7 ostrich feathers and 3 lanbrequins, a Count a toque with 5 feathers and 2 lambrequins, a Baron 3 feathers and one lambrequin, a knight only one ostrich feather.
There is also an unproven theory that the design of the
papal tiara would have been based on a toque.
Sports
Toque is also used for a hard type hat or
helmet, worn for riding, especially in
equestrian sports, often black and covered with black velvet.
Canadian variant
In Canada, "toque" may also be a misspelling of
tuque , a knit
woollen
winter hat, originally worn by French-Canadians but now a staple of the Canadian winter wardrobe. This "fashion" originated when
coureurs des bois kept their woollen nightcaps on for warmth during cold winter days. The
Canadian Oxford Dictionary regards the use of
toque for this hat to be assimilated from the etymologically unrelated French word
tuque.
Sources and references
- Katherine Barber, editor . The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition. Toronto, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-541816-6. — "Toque" is a main headword, "tuque" considered a variant spelling.
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External link
