He loved cooking chicken in cream sauce so much—case closed, too easy! He got a rooster tattooed as a tribute to cooking on the day he was honored by the Michelin Guide…Well, think again. The story behind Paul Bocuse’s tattoo took place far from the kitchen. We obviously knew him wearing his chef’s hat, but what is less well known is that Monsieur Paul traded it for a soldier’s helmet during the war. And his tattoo is closely linked to this much lesser-known episode of his life.
A rooster tattooed for a World War II survivor
It is 1944. After several years of occupation, the German army is cornered. The Eastern Front, focused on invading Russia, has significantly reduced its presence in France; the imminent arrival of the Allies in Normandy and an increasingly well-organized Resistance network, particularly in Lyon, are overwhelming the occupiers… It is in this context that a young man from Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or, barely 18 years old, decides that action must be taken! He , volunteers for General de Gaulle’s French Liberation Army.
He was seriously wounded near his heart during an operation in Haute-Saône and was rushed to safety by American G.I.s, where he was miraculously saved. To honor his courage, the Americans tattooed this rooster on him during his recovery— an emblem of Gaul and a symbol of the boldness he had demonstrated. “France tattooed by Americans. That, too, is history,” Paul Bocuse confessed in *Mémoires de chefs* in 2012. A beautiful way to sum up this almost unbelievable story.
The trademark of the Bocuse legend
Just as Karl Lagerfeld had his dark glasses or Serge Gainsbourg his Gitane, Paul Bocuse had his tattoo. Far from hiding it, Monsieur Paul even considered it a confidant, a friend. After the Liberation, the young chef returned to Mère Brazier’s kitchen as an apprentice to begin the career we all know. Paul Bocuse thus spent most of his time cooking under the watchful eye of a guardian angel unlike any other…Cock-a-doodle-doo!
