History LethalChef / Literature

* At least one of Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Literature/SERRAtedEdge'' books features a Sidhe warrior attempting to cook breakfast. Mind, the Sidhe ordinarily magic their food out of thin air... The sequence includes such gems as breaking the number of eggs required by the recipe and then "carefully picking out most of the shells" and figuring that hey, tomato paste, Tabasco... Both red sauces, a 1-1 substitution should be perfectly cromulent. This disaster actually becomes a major ''plot point'' instead of just a random funny. [[spoiler: He gives up after recognizing his failure and conjures the breakfast -- but doesn't do it sneakily enough, blowing his human cover identity.]]

* ''LightNovel/IsThisAZombie'':

* Cecilia Alcott of ''LightNovel/InfiniteStratos'' qualifies for this trope as well, despite being the {{Ojou}} character of the story. Her cooking was described as "[[FoodPorn looking exactly as depicted in the cookbook]], but tastes just like the cookbook", as evident when she gave Ichika a bite of one of her sandwiches. Later on confirmed in the OVA when she tried cooking a dinner meal. ''Using one of [[PoweredArmor Blue Tears]]' {{Attack Drone}}s.'' It's later revealed that her lack of common sense is a major cause of her horrendous cooking skills. While teaching her how to cook, Houki, Charlotte and the latter's roommate, Laura, all get sick from her attempts to make the food look better. Later, when Rin to teaches her how to make sweet & sour pork, Cecilia decides to use her IS's laser upon hearing Rin's advice that Chinese cooking is all about "firepower". [[StuffBlowingUp Much explosion ensues.]]

* Arianna of ''LightNovel/{{Campione}}'' is noted to have two failings as a [[{{Meido}} maid]]: [[DrivesLikeCrazy She cannot drive]] and [[LethalChef she can't cook stews]]. Any other type of food she can prepare to perfection, but her stews and soups taste so bizarre they're impossible to describe.

* Subverted in the ''LightNovel/LoveChunibyoAndOtherDelusions'' LightNovels. Rikka somehow is able to make a delicious cake despite not knowing how to cook and using unorthodox ingredients.

* [[TheJinx Asebi]] from ''LightNovel/BenTo'' is an odd variation of this trope. Her friend acts as though she's one, and given her credentials at inadvertently causing bad luck you would expect it. But when the main character tries her food he finds it looks perfectly nice, has expected texture and smell and also tastes fine... If not for the minute detail that ''nothing she makes tastes like it's supposed to''. Her fried pork tastes like fresh banana. Her boiled broccoli tastes like honey. The spiced prawns have no taste at all. Even perfectly ordinary rice ends up tasting strongly of coriander for some bizarre reason.

* ''LightNovel/BladedanceOfElementalers'':

* In ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'', the illustrator of the novels drew up a picture of all the girls involved in a cooking contest. While some of them do [[SupremeChef really well]], others...do not. The second worst is Anri, who manages to get a worse score ''than the girl without a head to taste with''. Then there's Emilia, who gets a score of -20... but she seems to be under the impression that she was supposed to be making a bomb.

* Mizuki Himeji from ''Literature/BakaAndTestSummonTheBeasts'' makes dishes that ''look'' appetizing, but they taste absolutely awful. [[ButtMonkey Poor Akihisa]] has violent hallucinations of being dragged off by grim reapers just by smelling it. It's explained later that this is because she uses potentially lethal ingredients Aqua Regia as a preservative, an acid that's best known to be one of the few acids that can dissolve ''gold''. Mizuki has no idea her cooking is that bad since she doesn't taste-test any of it, as she was FormerlyFat and she's afraid of gaining weight again.

** The school meatloaf is even worse than Jamie's mom's cooking. Mss Bruntford, the cafeteria monitor who gets upset when the kids don't eat the meatloaf, once tries some herself and yells, "Call 911!" Weirdly enough, while it ''tastes'' horrible, it works wonders as a lip balm, turning Isabella's dried-out, chapped lips into "full, round luscious crescents of papaya" in just a few hours.

** 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, and it takes ''fifteen'' saw blades to cut off a tiny slice of it. Its most useful purpose when used as rations is to make ''everything else'' look edible by comparison. 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]]).

* In ''Penny from Heaven,'' the main character's maternal grandmother, Me-me, can't seem to cook anything properly. Her liver is described as worse than her pot roast, which is worse than her beef stroganoff, "and you don't even want to know about her meat loaf". She's also seen making watery scrambled eggs, mushy peas and onions, and underripe banana pancakes. On the flip side, her Italian extended family on her father's side is a very long line of [[SupremeChef Supreme Chefs.]]

* At least one of Creator/MercedesLackey's ''[=SERRAted Edge=]'' books features a Sidhe warrior attempting to cook breakfast. Mind, the Sidhe ordinarily magic their food out of thin air... The sequence includes such gems as breaking the number of eggs required by the recipe and then "carefully picking out most of the shells" and figuring that hey, tomato paste, Tabasco... Both red sauces, a 1-1 substitution should be perfectly cromulent. This disaster actually becomes a major ''plot point'' instead of just a random funny. [[spoiler: He gives up after recognizing his failure and conjures the breakfast -- but doesn't do it sneakily enough, blowing his human cover identity.]]

** 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, and it takes ''fifteen'' saw blades to cut off a tiny slice of it. 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]]).
-->The dwarf bread was brought out for inspection. But it was miraculous, the dwarf bread. No one ever went hungry when they had some dwarf bread to avoid. You only had to look at it for a moment, and instantly you could think of dozens of things you'd rather eat. Your boots, for example. Mountains. Raw sheep. Your own foot.

** 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 Fair Go Dibbler's meat pie floater in pea soup with tomato sauce (regional specialty of XXXX).

-->'''Justicar''': Escalla, do we even have the ingredients for any of the food in your recipe book?
-->'''Escalla''': We can substitute with fresh foods from the wild! We'll do beef ragout.
-->'''Justicar''': Beef?
-->'''Escalla''': Beef, tree-frog, same difference. It'll be a blast!

* In the ''Literature/ArabianNights'' story "The Tortoise Bride", the princes' brides, one of whom is a tortoise, have to prepare meals for the sultan at their wedding. One of the brides is not very good at cooking, but when she hears the youngest prince boast that his tortoise bride is a SupremeChef, she hides behind a tapestry in the tortoise's room to learn her rival's secrets. The tortoise notices and [[BluffTheEavesdropper exclaims loudly that she hopes she has enough rat and pigeon droppings for her wedding dish.]] At the wedding feast, the eavesdropping bride's dish turns out to be a disgusting mess of droppings.

* In the ''Literature/ArabianNights'' story "The Tortoise Bride", the princes' brides, one of whom is a tortoise, have to prepare meals for the sultan at their wedding. One of the brides is not very good at cooking, but when she hears the youngest prince boast that his tortoise bride is a SupremeChef, she hides behind a tapestry in the tortoise's room to learn her rival's secrets. The tortoise notices and [[BluffTheEavesdropper exclaims loudly that she hopes she has enough rat and pigeon droppings for her wedding dish.]] At the wedding feast, the eavesdropping bride's dish is a disgusting mess of droppings.

* In the ''Literature/ArabianNights'' story "The Tortoise Bride", the princes' brides, one of whom is a tortoise, have to prepare meals for the sultan at their wedding. One of the brides is not very good at cooking, but when she hears the youngest prince boast that his tortoise bride is a SupremeChef, she hides behind a tapestry in the tortoise's room to learn her rival's secrets. The tortoise notices and [[BluffTheEavesdropper exclaims loudly that she hopes she has enough rat and pigeon droppings for her wedding.]] At the wedding feast, the eavesdropping bride's dish is a disgusting mess of droppings.

* 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.) His rock cakes, however, are basically inedible, and his treacle toffee nearly glues Harry's mouth shut.

%% Commented-out examples are zero-context examples. Please do not re-add without adding context.

* 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]."

* Mrs. Samuel Whiskers from Creator/BeatrixPotter's ''Tale of Samuel Whiskers and the Roly Poly Pudding'' literally tried to cook a [[spoiler: KITTEN]].
* The outdoor humorist Creator/PatrickMcManus has written extensively about growing up in a household headed by his hard, fearless, super-competent mother, commenting that the only thing she couldn't bend to her will was food. He learned to "scrape off the burnt parts". He also has written on occasion about the dangers of eating camp cooking. Don't ever eat the Green Hash.
%%* Literature/DocSavage. Along with singing and imitating a woman's voice, cooking is one of three skills he failed to master.

* Jay Leno's children's book ''If Roast Beef Could Fly'' has Jay's father, who attempts to do a BBQ every year but fails miserably in some way - he even says that his father ''throws'' the roast when it's done.
* At least one of Creator/MercedesLackey's ''[=SERRAted Edge=]'' books features a Sidhe warrior attempting to cook breakfast. Mind, the Sidhe ordinarily magic their food out of thin air... The sequence includes such gems as breaking the number of eggs required by the recipe and then "carefully picking out most of the shells" and figuring that hey, tomato paste, Tabasco... Both red sauces, a 1-1 substitution should be perfectly cromulent. This disaster actually becomes a major ''plot point'' instead of just a random funny. [[spoiler: He gives up after recognizing his failure and conjures the breakfast - but doesn't do it sneakily enough, blowing his human cover identity.]]
* 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.

* In ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'', the titular character's father is somewhere between this trope and CordonBleughChef in that most of his meals are lots of different flavors implemented badly -- of particular note is the unevenly-cooked homemade pizza which had pineapples on it served at the end.
* Alfons Zitterbacke from the children's book from UsefulNotes/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.

* The Justicar from Paul Kidd's trilogy ''White Plume Mountain'', ''Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth'', and ''Queen Of The Demonweb Pits'' is a pretty good camp cook, but that doesn't stop Escalla from once remarking that "real meals don't look up at you from the plate and offer to negotiate". His tea, however, typically prompts people to take one sip, then carefully pour the rest out when he isn't looking so as to avoid being poisoned by it. Escalla herself has a tendency to over-sweeten food: she's got the metabolism of a hummingbird and thus puts massive amounts of sugar, jam, and/or syrup on everything.
** From a short story in ''Magazine/{{Dragon}}''
-->'''Justicar''': Escalla, do we even have the ingredients for any of the food in your recipe book?
-->'''Escalla''': We can substitute with fresh foods from the wild! We'll do beef ragout.
-->'''Justicar''': Beef?
-->'''Escalla''': Beef, tree-frog, same difference. It'll be a blast!
* There's an old anecdote about a maid who's supposed to bake a goose. Which she does by putting it right into the oven, as it is. With feathers still on and innards still in. As the narrator tells us, it was a big stunk.
* Fisk, in the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries''. Michael gives up on trying to teach him after only two days.
* James [=McDonough=], author of ''Platoon Leader'', also wrote a tactics manual. Its framing device was that the protagonist was in purgatory, having to repeatedly fight battles to get into heaven. How did he die? He ate three [=MREs=] in rapid succession.

* The main conflict in the children's book ''Beats Me, Claude'' revolves around Shirley's inability to cook apple pie. On the third try, [[EpicFail she even forgets to add the apples.]]
* Although she enjoys cooking, Isabelle Lightwood from ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'' isn't good at it and everyone hates her food. Her mother didn't teach her how to cook because she was afraid Isabelle would be told to StayInTheKitchen.
* Gladys from ''Literature/TheNightGarden'' has a tendency to burn every meal she makes. She chalks it up to not having any music to listen to while working.
* In the Literature/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.
* A RunningGag in ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Storm Breaking]]'' is the horrified reactions to finding out it's Firesong's turn to cook.
* Kitsune Sura in ''Literature/SpiritHunters''. "I can cook anything with legs! When the legs stop moving, it's done."
* Melissa from ''Literature/IAmJ'' can't cook. Even her boiled eggs taste burnt. In her quest to be healthy and restrict calories, she also ends up making things bland and mixing weird things up.

%%* The titular Literature/MaximumRide is one — to the point that the Flock has an OOCIsSeriousBusiness moment when her clone replacement offers to cook.
* Betsy from ''Literature/BetsyTacy'' takes a good long time to learn how to cook, and rarely produces edible results until she's been keeping house for nearly a year. Several disastrous dinners are recounted in "Betsy's Wedding": memorably a meat pie that manages to be soggy, undercooked, overcooked, and burnt all at the same time.

* 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.
* In ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'', neither Harrow nor Ianthe knows how to cook, since, being highly born in a FeudalFuture, neither of them ever had to before. Ianthe's idea of how to cook soup is to burn an onion in the bottom of a pot full of water and then add some salt. Harrow's soup is ''even worse'' than Ianthe's--not helped by the fact that at the time she's cooking it, she hasn't slept in almost a week. [[spoiler: Also, it's almost literally lethal; she's cooking with the express goal of assassinating someone with it, and so uses her ''own bone marrow'' as the base, and turns the marrow into an extremely sharp skeleton after he's ingested it. Only literal divine intervention saves his life.]]
* ''Literature/AnimalInn'': Val's really not that good a cook. Known examples include an incident where she forgot to put baking powder in "baking powder biscuits", and when she put a whole chicken in the oven with the plastic bag of giblets still inside. Her siblings also tease her by claiming she could burn lemonade.

** 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.

* In ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'', neither Harrow nor Ianthe knows how to cook, since, being highly born in a FeudalFuture, neither of them ever had to before. Ianthe's idea of how to cook soup is to burn an onion in the bottom of a pot full of water and then add some salt. Harrow's soup is ''even worse'' than Ianthe's--not helped by the fact that at the time she's cooking it, she hasn't slept in almost a week. [[spoiler: Also, it's almost literally lethal; she's cooking with the express goal of assassinating someone with it, and so uses her ''own bone marrow'' as the base, and turns the marrow into an extremely sharp skeleton after he's ingested it. Only literal divine intervention saves his life.]]

* In ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'', neither Harrow nor Ianthe knows how to cook, since, being highly born in a FeudalFuture, neither of them ever had to before. Ianthe's idea of how to cook soup is to burn an onion in the bottom of a pot full of water and then add some salt. Harrow's soup is ''even worse'' than Ianthe's--not helped by the fact that at the time she's cooking it, she hasn't slept in almost a week. [[spoiler: Also, it's almost literally lethal; she's cooking with the express goal of assassinating someone with it, and so uses her ''own bone marrow'' as the base, and turns the marrow into an extremely sharp skeleton after it's inside him. Only literal divine intervention saves his life.]]

* In ''Literature/HarrowTheNinth'', neither Harrow nor Ianthe knows how to cook, since, being highly born in a FeudalFuture, neither of them ever had to before. Ianthe's idea of how to cook soup is to burn an onion in the bottom of a pot full of water and then add some salt. Harrow's soup is ''even worse'' than Ianthe's--not helped by the fact that at the time she's cooking it, she hasn't slept in almost a week. [[spoiler: Also, it's almost literally lethal; she uses her ''own bone marrow'' as the base, and nearly kills her target by turning the soup into a skeleton after it's inside him. Only literal divine intervention saves his life.]]

* Gladys from ''Literature/TheNightGarden'' has a tendency to burn every meal she makes. She chocks it up to not having any music to listen to while working.

----

* In ''Penny from Heaven,'' the eponymous character's maternal grandmother, Me-me, is one. Her liver is described as worse than her pot roast, which is worse than her beef stroganoff, "and you don't even want to know about her meat loaf". On the flip side, her Italian extended family on her father's side is a very long line of [[SupremeChef Supreme Chefs.]]

** 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."

* Mrs. Samuel Whiskers from Creator/BeatrixPotter's ''Tale of Samuel Whiskers and the Roly Poly Pudding''.

* Gladys from ''Literature/TheNightGarden has a tendency to burn every meal she makes. She chocks it up to not having any music to listen to while working.