This is not an industry renowned for letter-writing, but if there's one thing that makes Caterer's postbag swell it's a picture of a chef without a hat.
Cynics would say those who thunder into the letters page are those with not enough to do (college lecturers) or those looking for free publicity (hygiene consultants). The truth is that opinion on the Great Hat Debate cuts right across the industry. There are plenty of chefs who believe fervently that a head covering is just as integral to personal hygiene as clean fingernails; just as there are those chefs who think wearing a white traffic cone on the head looks stupid, archaic and unnecessary for those with good personal hygiene. And, anyway, TV chefs never wear hats - so it must be OK.
If it's a food safety and hygiene issue, isn't it a matter of statutory legislation rather than a fashion whim? Hair care is addressed in the Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995, but don't look for black-and-white guidance. The law is quite clear that chefs can't spit in the kitchen, but on kitchen clothing and personal hygiene the law is fuzzy, saying every person working in a food-handling area must maintain a high degree of personal cleanliness and wear suitable, clean and, where appropriate, protective clothing.
So who decides what is appropriate protective clothing and warns chefs against nose-picking? It is the local environmental health officer who will make a decision on whether the laws governing kitchen hygiene are being followed in spirit and letter. So what is their collective view? Bad news: they don't have one.
A spokeswoman for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health confirms that while there are guidelines in current legislation, it is down to individual officers to take a view on the risk assessment. "Neat, short hair might be acceptable, but long, loose hair might not be."
Perhaps the most high-profile hatless chef of the moment is Giorgio Locatelli, who is not just hatless, but has hair of a length that would not look out of place in a 1970s rock band. Does he think there is a hygiene issue? How often does he wash his hair? Is it falling out? Has he got dandruff? These are things we need to know.
Never the shrinking violet, Locatelli has a colourful view of chefs being ordered to wear a hat in the kitchen: "Have you ever seen a chef cooking with his head? Nobody ever died from a hair in the soup, but plenty died from food poisoning. That is what these hygiene police should be looking at. I say to my boys in the kitchen they can wear what they want. If I see them touching their head when they're cooking, I tell them to wear a skull cap, but I don't want the Food Standards Agency telling me what to wear."
And the big question on the condition of those flowing locks? "My hair is not falling out and I have not got dandruff and that Food Standards Agency can come round and look."
So, if the legal view on hats is currently as clear as rough cider, can Locatelli and the other hatless chefs of the UK look forward to a maintaining of the status quo and let their hair continue to waft in the breeze of the kitchen extraction system?
The answer to that is probably not. The Food Standards Agency, along with other interested bodies, is re-evaluating the way good kitchen hygiene practice - known as HACCP (Hazard Analysis, Critical Control Points) - rules and guidelines are worded, with a view to tightening them up. Compulsory wearing of hats in the professional kitchen is on the agenda. Locatelli looks set for a bad hair day.