cook, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cook n.¹

(orig. US drugs)

1. an expert who prepares an opium pipe.

1883		Sun (NY) 20 May 2/7: He has a good ‘cook’, one who knows how to dangle the [opium] paste over the flame, until it takes on the brown color of the bowl, and has an odor something like cocoa.
1886		‘Life in a New York Opium Den’ in T. Byrnes Professional Criminals of America 🌐 They were the professional cooks, receiving so much for every twenty-five cents’ worth of opium, that was brought in a shell.
1896		S. Crane in Sun (N.Y.) 20 Oct. in Stallman (1966) 146: The cook takes the opium from the box [...] Then he holds it over the tiny flame of the lamp [etc.].
1914		Amer. Mag. 77 June 31–5: Thirty-six fun of opium at retail costs, at an average, three dollars. A fifty-cent tip to my ‘cook’ and a quarter for the privilege of the room in which I smoked made my habit cost me about four dollars a day.
1936		D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 120/1: cook. The attendant in an opium den.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 100: I found myself watching the cook dreamily, as though he had some magic formula.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 307: cook. An attendant in an opium den.

2. (Aus.) a single session of manufacturing heroin.

1997

L. Davies Candy 193: Five hundred bucks, which included three lessons and the contents of those three cooks.

3. (Aus.) a single session of manufacturing methamphetamine.

2005

P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] I hear they got someone to do a cook for em, too.

4. a manufacturer of methamphetmaine.

2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] This bloke, he’s like a travellin speed cook.
2012		D. Whish-Wilson ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I’m a speed cook, forced to stay in the SHU, with the psychos, peds and catamites, to keep me away from my suitors.
2014		M. McBride Swollen Red Sun 16: [T]he habits of a meth cook were sporadic.
2016		Guardian 21 Nov. 🌐 Former P cook Meyer was a poor science student in high school and says the demand for her P cook-ups was ‘a major ego boost’.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

cook-ruffian (n.)

(UK Und.) a bad or bad-tempered cook.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Cook-ruffin, c. the Devil of a Cook, or a very bad one.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Cook ruffian, who roasted the devil in his feathers, a bad cook.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Cook ruffian scolded the Devil in his feathers, saying of a bad cook.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

cook’s own (n.) [a play on regimental nicknames + the force’s supposed affection for the cooks working in the great London mansions]

the police force.

1878

C. Hindley Life and Times of James Catnach 203: The term ‘bobby’ — after Robert Peel, immediately became the cant word, together with [...] the ‘Royal Blues; or, the Cook’s Own,’ and other opprobrious terms.

In phrases

do a cook (v.) (also cook up)

(N.Z. prison) to manufacture heroin or morphine, using phramaceutical products that contain codeine or morphine sulphate.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 46/1: cook n. do a cook (also do a bake) to illicitly prepare morphine and heroin from pharmaceutical products containing codeine or morphine sulphate [...] cook up = do a cook.

cook n.1

SE in slang uses

In compounds

In phrases

cook n.¹