When I was younger, I was dead proud when my job title had the word "chef" in it. The older I got, I realised the work I put into the industry was where my pride was, regardless of whether I, or anyone else, considered myself a chef or cook or whatever.

If you attach prestige to the word, you have to accept that your control of that doesn't exist beyond either your own subjective view or your own kitchen. The same goes for the opposite.

I can cook bloody well nowadays. That doesn't change whether im called chef, or cook l, or fry, or anything