Worshipful Company of Cooks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Worshipful Company of Cooks is the smallest of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Company traces its origins back to the 12th Century, founded from two guilds of cooks in medieval London - the Cooks of Eastcheap and the Cooks of Bread Street. The Company received its Royal Charter in 1482.

As you would expect from a Company whose roots can be traced back to 1170, the Worshipful Company of Cooks has a rich and colourful history from the earliest records of Cooks in the Middle Ages and their control of the craft until the 19th Century to the Company’s current charitable works.
The Company is no longer an association of tradesmen in its original sense of control; yet its membership today still includes craft tradesmen, as well as active engagement with a broad range of organisations associated with cooking.[1]

The Company's purpose in contemporary times can be summarised by three principle objectives: to support the modern day craft of cooking including catering excellence through competition, scholarly and scientific culinary research, and the development of food policy; to fund a range of charitable activities associated with the welfare and education of the catering trade as well as the City of London; and to pursue a fellowship of association that can mobilise the necessary resource, skill and wisdom to bring them about.

The Cooks' Company ranks thirty-fifth in the order of precedence of Livery Companies. Its motto is Vulnerati Non Victi, Latin for Wounded not Conquered.