History LethalChef / Literature

* Molly Carpenter from ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' is a borderline lethal chef. According to Harry she one time burned a boiled egg, and refers to her kitchen attempts as "committing dinner." At least she can make coffee.
* From ''Literature/CodexAlera'':the Vord Queen's attempts at cooking tend to fail. Then again, so do all her attempts at acting human.

* In the ''Literature/ChaletSchool'' series, some of the girls' cooking failures are played for laughs in some of the cookery classes. In ''The Chalet School and the Lintons'', for instance, Cornelia Flower uses ''garlic'' cloves as flavouring for apple pies rather than normal cloves, and in ''Carola Storms the Chalet School'', Carola Johnston's class fry their jam doughnuts in cod liver oil.

* In ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' for a example, the lead attempts to make a sandwich that is described as an explosion on a plate.

* While we never actually got to read about Shae's cooking in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' , she did mention that "every man who tasted her cooking told [her] what a good whore [she is]."

* Moiraine and Siuan are ''both'' revealed to be lethal chefs in ''[[Literature/TheWheelOfTime New Spring]]'', when custom requires them to bake an Aes Sedai a pie shortly after their initiation ceremony. Moiraine's is inedible (and justified, as she's a noblewoman who never needed to learn how to cook). Siuan's is more subtle; the Aes Sedai eats it all, proclaims it very good--and then has to run for the privy as well as get magical healing after.
* Miss Mush and Mr. Pepperadder from the ''Literature/WaysideSchool'' series. Subverted in that they aren't so much poor cooks as poor ''quantity'' cooks: when they only have to cook for two or three people, it's gourmet quality. However, Wayside School has 4,000 people in the building. Her most popular dish with the students is ''nothing''. The kids really dread the days she runs out of it, and they have to get something else.

* In ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'', Anne unwittingly flavors a cake with anodyne liniment instead of vanilla, due to Marilla placing the remaining contents of a broken liniment bottle in an old vanilla bottle. However, Anne is a good cook the rest of the time, if she's not distracted by her imagining things.
* Mrs. Bright from ''Literature/EverythingEverything'' makes Bundt cakes that are inedible in the most literal sense of the word.

* ''Literature/DearDumbDiary''
** Jamie's mom is an awful cook, but constantly guilt-trips her daughter and husband to eat her cooking because of the starving kids in foreign countries (or as Jamie puts it, "Wheretheheckistan") who would love her food. Jamie dryly comments, "It seems to me the kids in Wheretheheckistan have enough problems without dumping Mom's casseroles on them, too." However, she can make delicious appetizers, with Jamie saying, "It's like she'd be a great cook if she only had to prepare meals for Barbies."
** The school meatloaf is even worse than Jamie's mom's cooking. Weirdly enough, while it ''tastes'' horrible, it works wonders as a lip balm, turning Isabella's chapped lips into "full, round luscious crescents of papaya" in just a few hours.

** CMOT Dibbler sells sausages that qualify as food on a good day. The fact that he's been able to ''keep'' doing this for so long is put down to his salesmanship and some undefinable quality of the pies themselves. Moist von Lipwig speculates that the brain just can't believe what the tastebuds tell it, driving customers back for more.
** The numerous [[InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals Dibbler copies]] also have their own barely edible wares: Disembowel-Meself-Honourably Dibhala's funny-colored antique eggs, Al-Jiblah's highly suspicious cous-cous, the terrible yak-butter tea made by May-I-Never-Achieve Enlightenment Dibhlang and the unmentionable blubber of May-I-Be-Kicked-Into-My-Own-Ice-Hole Dibooki (main ingredient: exploded whale), the green beer of Swallow-Me-Own-Blowdart Dlang-Dlang and the meat pie floater in pea soup with tomato sauce (regional speciality of the last continent).

** Jamie's mom is an awful cook, but constantly guilt-trips her daughter and husband to eat her cooking because of the starving kids in foreign countries (or as Jamie puts it, "Wheretheheckistan") who would love her food. Jamie dryly comments, "It seems to me the kids in Wheretheheckistan have enough problems without dumping Mom's casseroles on them, too."
** The school meatloaf is even worse than Jamie's mom's cooking. Weirdly enough, while it ''tastes'' horrible, it functions as an amazing lip balm, turning Isabella's chapped lips into "full, round luscious crescents of papaya" in just a few hours.

** Jamie's mom is an awful cook, but constantly guilt-trips her daughter and husband to eat her cooking because of the starving kids in foreign countries (or as Jamie puts it, "Wheretheheckistan") who would love her food. Jamie dryly comments, "It seems to me the kids in Wheretheheckistan have enough problems without me sending them Mom's food."

** Jamie's mom is an awful cook, but constantly guilt-trips her daughter and husband to eat her cooking because of the starving kids in foreign countries (or as Jamie puts it, "Wheretheheckistan") would love her food. Jamie dryly comments, "It seems to me the kids in Wheretheheckistan have enough problems without me sending them Mom's food."
** The school meatloaf is even worse than Jamie's mom's cooking. Weirdly enough, while it ''tastes'' horrible, it functions as an amazing lip balm, turning Isabella's chapped lips into "full, round luscious crescents of papaya".

* Mrs. Bright from ''Literature/EverythingEverything makes Bundt cakes that are inedible in the most literal sense of the word.

* The titular Literature/MaximumRide is one — to the point that the Flock has an OOCIsSeriousBusiness moment when her clone replacement offers to cook.

** CMOT Dibbler sells sausages that qualify as food on a good day. The fact that he's been able to ''keep'' doing this for so long is put down to his salesmanship and some weird, undefinable quality of the pies themselves. Moist von Lipwig speculates that the brain just can't believe what the tastebuds tell it, driving customers back for more.

** CMOT Dibbler sells sausages that qualify as food on a good day. The fact that he's been able to ''keep'' doing this for so long is put down to his salesmanship and some weird, undefinable quality of the pies themselves.

** CMOT Dibbler sells sausages that qualify as food on a good day.

* Hagrid's poor attempts at cooking are the butt of many jokes in ''Literature/HarryPotter''. (However, the birthday cakes he gives Harry are good, and he can fry tasty sausages, though that may have been due to how hungry Harry was at the time.)

* Hagrid's poor attempts at cooking are the butt of many jokes in ''Literature/HarryPotter''. (Howevet, the birthday cakes he gives Harry are good, and he can fry tasty sausages, though that may have been due to how hungry Harry was at the time.)

* In the SectorGeneral book ''The Galactic Gourmet'', a sous chef changes what is though to be an erroneous recipe (reasoning that the chef couldn't possibly have purchased decades worth of nutmeg all at once), resulting in mass nutmeg poisoning.

** Properly baked dwarf bread is always made by a lethal chef. Used less as a food and [[BaguetteBeatdown more as a weapon]], its main ingredient is apparently gravel. Its most useful purpose when used as rations is to make ''everything else'' look edible. Note that this is intentional on their part, and they can cook other dishes that are perfectly edible to any race (at least, [[AlienLunch if you don't mind rat]]).

* Alfons Zitterbacke from the children's book from EastGermany with the same name. Once in summer camp, Alfons and his buddy Bruno volunteer for cooking. Which they've never done before. They try Makkaroni with tomatoes. At first they don't use water, and half of the noodles get burnt. In the second try, they use more water, then throw the tomatoes in, but notice that the result looks more like soup and tastes "funny". They decide it lacks salt, and add ''three pounds'' of it. No wonder one girl thinks she's poisoned when trying to eat it.

* In the ''ChaletSchool'' series, some of the girls' cooking failures are played for laughs in some of the cookery classes. In ''The Chalet School and the Lintons'', for instance, Cornelia Flower uses ''garlic'' cloves as flavouring for apple pies rather than normal cloves, and in ''Carola Storms the Chalet School'', Carola Johnston's class fry their jam doughnuts in cod liver oil.

* The searat captain Slipp in ''[[{{Literature/Redwall}} The Bellmaker]]'' claims to be a cook rather than a pirate when trying to get into the Abbey. Of course he's told to prove it. His patented "skilly an' duff" contains a wide range of vegetation of dubious non-toxicity and the smell is compared to that of a compost heap, thus blowing his cover.

* While we never actually got to read about Shae's cooking in ''{{A Song of Ice and Fire}}'' , she did mention that "every man who tasted her cooking told [her] what a good whore [she is]."

* Moiraine and Siuan are ''both'' revealed to be lethal chefs in ''[[WheelOfTime New Spring]]'', when custom requires them to bake an Aes Sedai a pie shortly after their initiation ceremony. Moiraine's is inedible (and justified, as she's a noblewoman who never needed to learn how to cook). Siuan's is more subtle; the Aes Sedai eats it all, proclaims it very good--and then has to run for the privy as well as get magical healing after.

* Miss Mush and Mr. Pepperadder from the ''WaysideSchool'' series. Subverted in that they aren't so much poor cooks as poor ''quantity'' cooks: when they only have to cook for two or three people, it's gourmet quality. However, Wayside School has 4,000 people in the building. Her most popular dish with the students is ''nothing''. The kids really dread the days she runs out of it, and they have to get something else.

* {{Inverted|Trope}} in a RogerZelazny book, ''Isle of the Dead''. The main character employs an alien chef who can prepare the finest specialties of human cuisine, but owing to biology and personal taste, considers the dishes to be something between vomit-inducing garbage and toxic chemistry experiments.

* The searat captain Slipp in ''[[{{Redwall}} The Bellmaker]]'' claims to be a cook rather than a pirate when trying to get into the Abbey. Of course he's told to prove it. His patented "skilly an' duff" contains a wide range of vegetation of dubious non-toxicity and the smell is compared to that of a compost heap, thus blowing his cover.

* In [[{{The Onion}} Our Dumb World]], paella is described as containing a long list of things both edible and not, concluding with "...and anything else in arm's reach that's not too heavy."