Today’s tattooed chefs are regarded as
sophisticated warriors of culinary culture.
For some chefs, it’s almost as if the
tattoo is as crucial as the toque or chef
coat. In fact, chef tattoos have gone so
mainstream that the National Restaurant
Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel
Show now collects them for its Kitchen
Ink project ( www.restaurant.org/show/
galleriffic/ tattoos.cfm).
Are tattooed chefs a secret society of
the stove?
I INK, THEREFORE, I AM
In the 1990s, when Dr. Katherine Irwin,
associate professor in the sociology
department at the University of Hawai’i
at Manoa, Honolulu, studied tattoos, she
defined at least two types of tattooers:
conventional folk who sported small
tattoos and craved something seemingly
rebellious and decadent, but only after
tattoos had become acceptable fashion
statements; and collectors who displayed
large images, sought out the best tattoo
artists, and usually were artists and
intellectuals themselves—part of the
avant-garde.
To Irwin’s mind, Michelle Garcia, co-owner
with husband Vinny of Bleeding Heart
Bakery, Chicago, would be a collector.
Today, a lacework of more than 150 tattoos
covers 50% of Garcia’s body. From a
self-proclaimed child rebel to a young
woman seeking femininity and beauty to
a successful entrepreneur and mother of
three, Garcia limns her life on her neck, back,
arms and legs. “I’ve got the word ‘Revolution’
on my neck and ‘Working Class’ on my arm.”
Now add images of personal identity,
endearment and commemoration, and her
tattoos read like another girl’s memoirs.
“I’ve got ‘Mama Face,’ my son’s nickname
for me, on my right hand, and below
my neck, the patron saint of lost souls
holding a baby in remembrance of a child
I lost when I was six months pregnant,”
Garcia says.
Soon, she’ll add a gnome tattoo to honor
her new baby Oliver. With a blue sparrow for
son Gabriel and a pink sparrow for daughter
Sofi, Garcia’s body is a living, breathing
diary. “My tattoos tell the story of my life.”
Fortunately, some tattoo errors can be
covered up. By age 13, Garcia and her
friends proclaimed their group identity
by tattooing themselves with the word
“anarchy.” “It was so punk rock,” Garcia
says. “Today I’m not an anarchist and I’m
not as angry as I was back then. I want
positive images for my kids. So I covered
up ‘anarchy’ with a root beer float.”
Garcia’s tattoos testify to her love of sweet
donuts, pie, bonbons, biscotti, cherries,
apples and chocolate chip cookies. “Bake
Cake” is tattooed on her right hand, and she
contemplates tattooing a sweet surprise on
her upper back. This year she’s focusing on
fried food tattoos, too, including a Chicago-
style hot dog and Mexican corn on a stick.
“To me, humans are canvas, and you can do
something with it or not,” Garcia says. “I’m
certain that if I didn’t have my tattoos, my
business wouldn’t be as successful as it is.”
And her tattoo obsession has jumped off
her body and onto her work. While a red
dragon writhes up one cake, another sports
old-school “Sailor Jerry” tattoos, golf balls
and tees and “Mom” hearts, all climbing
toward the family pet.
ARISTOCRAT, WARRIOR OR SLAVE?
Not unlike modern chefs who use tattoos
to cover burn scars, some tattoos may have
developed when an English chimney sweep
wiped his dirty hands over the gashes from
an accident, creating a permanent reminder
of the perils of his work, according to van
Dinter. And just as some modern chefs
adopt macho poses, “North American
Apache and Comanche warriors rubbed
earth into battle wounds to make the
scarring more visible and flaunt them
within the tribe,” van Dinter notes.
Garcia first tattooed herself at age 11
with the word “SID.” “He was the cutest
member of the Sex Pistols. I was totally
in love with him,” she says. “I did it using
a needle and black India ink. My early
tattoos were all black and white. I had no
color until I was 21 and determined to
become more feminine.”
A tree trunk on one entire lower leg marks
her decision to set down permanent Chicago
roots. “Our wedding rings are tattooed on
our fingers as a ball and chain, mine with
‘V’ for Vinny, his with ‘M’ for Michelle.” And
they have matching hearts with a common
working class motto: “My Class, My Pride.”
From designs on ancient Dyaks of Borneo
commemorating headhunting forays to
patterns possibly to protect Egyptian
women in childbirth, tattoos speak of pain,
defiance and subjugation, among other
things. Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old mummified
Iceman, was covered with tattoos believed
