child of the kitchen

English

Noun

child of the kitchen (plural children of the kitchen)

1. (historical) An unskilled kitchen worker assigned to menial tasks.
   • 1815, Edward Wedlake Brayley, James Norris Brewer, Joseph Nightingale, London and Middlesex: or, An historical, commercial, & descriptive survey of the Metropolis of Great-Britain, page 370:

     Then in the hall kitchen, two clerks of the kitchen, a clerk comptroller, a surveyor of the dresser, a clerk of the spicery; all which together kept also a continual mess in the hall; also, in his hall kitchen, he had of master cooks two; and of other cooks, labourers, and children of the kitchen, twelve persons : four yeomen of the silver scullery, two yeomen of the pantry, with two other pastelers under the yeomen.

   • 2014, Alan Davidson, Tom Jaine, The Oxford Companion to Food, page 216:

     The master-cook began his career with apprenticeship at the lowest level, as a child of the kitchen, where he was subject to harsh discipline: as Olivier de la Marche points out, the master-cook's ladle was for hitting the children as well as for tasting sauces. Careers were often slow: in the French royal kitchens, Jean Jart was a child of the kitchen in 1386, and a master-cook only in 1418.

   • 2015, J. S. Brewer, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII:

     The Kitchen :—John Waleston, chief clerk; 8 others. John Cace, master cook; eleven others, with twelve children of the kitchen.

   • 2017, Annie Gray, The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria, →ISBN:

     Many of the roles had been renamed over the previous 50 years — The Georgian children of the kitchen and boys of the kitchen (all adults, despite the names) had disappeared, while the turnbroaches of an earlier era no longer actively turned spits, and were now roasting cooks.