"male assistant to a (male) cook in a lumber camp, etc.," 1846, American English, from cook (n.) + diminutive ending.
Entries linking to cookee
cook n.
"one whose occupation is the preparing and cooking of food," Old English coc, from Vulgar Latin *cocus "cook," from Latin coquus, from coquere "to cook, prepare food, ripen, digest, turn over in the mind" from PIE root *pekw- "to cook, ripen."
Germanic languages had no one native term for all types of cooking, and borrowed the Latin word (Old Saxon kok, Old High German choh, German Koch, Swedish kock).
There is the proverb, the more cooks the worse potage. [Gascoigne, 1575]