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* ''Series/TwoTwoSeven'': Pearl once entered her rhubarb pie in a baking contest and she not only lost, but made the judges sick. When her grandson Calvin points out that she still makes that pie, she replies "And it's still making people sick!"
* Uncle Fester of ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' thinks that combining sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter makes fudge (for those who don't know, that's the recipe for gunpowder).
* A skit on ''Series/AllThat'' is called The Filthy Chef which is a parody of ''The Naked Chef''.
* Thelma from ''Series/{{Amen}}'' was a notoriously bad cook. In one episode following her wedding to the Reverend, she burned down their apartment while cooking chicken with the gang locked inside. Everyone panicked except for Rolly, who knew "Thelma's cooking would kill us all one day" and read the newspaper as smoke filled the room and the others made frantic calls to 911.
* For the most part, Aunt Bea from ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow'' is an excellent cook, but everybody seems to really hate her pickles. Opie commented that the make him sick. In fact, they end up literally lethal, at least in the case of bugs.
--> '''Barney:''' Shoo, fly! [{{beat}}]...he's dead.
* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'': Lindsay's thankfully rare attempts at cooking invariably fall under this. She doesn't have even the most basic understanding of food preparation, resulting in dishes such as "hot ham water", and soup made with uncooked chicken. She also has an alarming habit of leaving the stove unattended with all the burners on, as well as leaving knives on the edge of the counter.
* ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}'':
** ''Series/{{Arrow}}'':
*** Laurel, apparently. The only food she ''can'' make is [[OneNoteCook macaroni and cheese]].
---->'''Oliver:''' Thank god she didn't cook.\\
'''Tommy:''' ''Amen''.
*** Earth-2 Laurel, on the other hand, seems to be a reasonably competent cook. Quentin notes the difference.
*** Felicity can't cook to save her life. She's annoyed to discover that Oliver ''can'', even though he spent most of his life having servants handle that sort of thing and then spent years on a deserted island. (Apparently, he discovered a talent for it while coming close to starvation on the island.) Though in a partial subversion, a later season reveals Felicity can ''bake'' because it involves chemistry.
---->'''Oliver:''' Felicity Smoak... you have failed this omelette.
** ''Series/TheFlash2014'': When Iris tries to make breakfast for Barry and Nora, she burns ''everything'', screws up the shape of the pancakes, and there might have been something wrong with the juice too. Barry makes an attempt to pretend it's good, but Nora clearly saw this coming a mile away and doesn't even touch it. [[spoiler:Since Nora is their KidFromTheFuture]], this means Iris' cooking never improves.
--->'''Nora:''' ''[takes a picture of her food]''\\
'''Iris:''' What are you doing?\\
'''Nora:''' I am just getting evidence that you make lumpy pancakes in every time period.
*** On the other hand, Iris' Mirror clone is a good cook, making perfectly brown circular pancakes and freshly squeezed juice, which shocks Barry.
*** In the ''Series/{{Elseworlds 2018}}'' crossover, one of the first signs that the entire universe has been changed is that Iris' pancakes are now edible.
** ''Series/{{Supergirl 2015}}'': Everything Kara tries to cook ends up burned. ''Always''. Her danishes at least look edible, but turn out to be somehow even worse.
--->'''Alex:''' You know you can't cook turkey three times, right?\\
'''Kara:''' It's ''accumulating flavor''.
* The [=BBC=] series ''Back in Time for Dinner'' attempts to tell us about social history through food, with an ordinary family preparing and eating food typical of a given year in the 20th century. In keeping with social trends, this involved the mother doing most of the cooking. Bizarrely, though entertainingly, the producers chose to cast a family where the mother is, by her own reckoning as well as her family's, a terrible cook (truly, you have never seen anyone struggle with a simple tin opener the way she does!). And she doesn't get any better as the series progresses, either. The relief was obvious when they reached the 1980s and the progression in social trends allowed the father, who ''is'' a good cook, to take over preparing the meals. There was also considerable relief when the sequel ''Further Back in Time for Dinner'' furnished them with a maid to cook for them -- unfortunately, this arrangement was only temporary, and the mom was soon back in charge.
* Yukito from ''Series/BakuryuuSentaiAbaranger''. He's a horrid cook, but insists that he's THAT good and forces his teammates to eat his cooking, and if they don't, it's the cooking equivalent to Website/TVTropes' [[MemeticMutation "You have no soul"]] for them. Hell, his cooking rendered Asuka to hole up in the toilet for the whole episode.
* ''Series/BarRescue'' usually just shows messy kitchens and uninspired menus; however, their New Orleans episode featured a bar where the undercooked gumbo gave the guest chef food poisoning on camera.
** The alleged chef from Fairways Golf and Grill, who didn't even know how to cook a hamburger, and kept what was likely the most unsanitary kitchen to have ever appeared on the show. You know things are bad when mixology expert Phil Wills gets sick '''off the beer.'''
** The chef from Pineapple Hill Grill, who’s guilty of serving long expired ribs and other meats with '''extreme''' levels of mold on them with customers none the wiser and cross-contaminating his entire kitchen by not bothering to wear gloves or wash his hands after handling raw product. Taffer and his experts point out that the former alone is enough to get someone really sick or even killed and proceed to give said chef a ''huge'' verbal beatdown for his negligence.
* Anil from ''Series/TheBasilBrushShow''. There are so many examples that could be listed:
--->'''Basil:''' ... It's Anil's secret recipe for cream meat rolls!\\
'''Stephen:''' (takes it and reads) Oh, so ''that's'' why the meat's green...\\
'''Basil:''' Yeah, and it explains why it's only on the menu when Anil's got a cold.
** In one episode when he temporarily loses the cafe, being an expert in the field of bad food, he becomes the new food hygiene inspector for the local council.
--->'''Stephen:''' What happened to the old one?\\
'''Anil:''' ''(funeral music starts playing)'' One of my pies.
** A pool of his chili sauce can substitute for a LavaPit.
** In another episode, he makes something that actually tastes good (according to the main cast). But then...
--->'''Basil:''' 'Ere, Anil. How did you get rid of those rats in the end?\\
''(silence; one by one they stop eating as it dawns on them...)''
* The Hong Kong game show ''Beautiful Cooking'' is built completely on this trope. Its rating scale goes from 10, which is "Looks and tastes edible" to a -10, which is "I vomited more than once". There are some girls who can't cook well for the first event or the latter while some are just completely hopeless. In one case, one of the guests got food poisoning and had to be treated to the season finale dinner to compensate for the suffering he went through.
* ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'': Elly May Clampett's cooking is nigh inedible. Her biscuits and donuts are hard as a rock and just as heavy. One episode sees her make a meatloaf in the shape of a giant meatball. Said meatloaf bounces like a basketball.
* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'':
** This exchange pretty much sums up why the gang (or at least Penny) eats so much [[TrademarkFavoriteFood Chinese take-out]]
---> '''Penny:''' Spaghetti okay?\\
'''Leonard''': (Trying to spare her feelings): Crunchy... Just the way I like.\\
'''Penny:''' Yeah, I don’t think the water was really boiling.
** Sheldon's attempt to cook an authentic pioneer meal for Amy gives the both of them food poisoning. (Normally he might avert this: he ''likes'' following instructions exactly. The problem was that in order to make an authentic meal he conscientiously replicated every element of the dubious ingredient quality, limited refrigeration and lax sanitary standards of pioneer days he could find, all at once.)
* Baldrick in ''Series/{{Blackadder}}''. Naturally, he is also the only chef from Series 3 onwards. In Series 4 he has the excuse of limited resources, but there are some things that an excuse just can't cover:
-->'''Blackadder:''' There are amoeba on Saturn that can boil a better egg than you. Your filets mignon in sauce Bearnaise look like dog turds in glue.\\
'''Baldrick:''' That's because they are.\\
'''Blackadder:''' Your plum duff tastes like it's a molehill decorated with rabbit droppings...\\
'''Baldrick:''' I thought you wouldn't notice.\\
'''Blackadder:''' And your cream custard has the texture of cat's vomit.\\
'''Baldrick:''' Again, it's...
* Bernard from ''Series/BlackBooks'' is this, especially when he starts to run out of ingredients.
-->'''Bernard''': My oven can cook anything... My oven can cook BITS OF OVEN.
* Kristen Sims from ''Series/TheBrokenwoodMysteries'' who cannot even provide coffee that her co-workers are willing to drink. The only advice given to an incoming constable is not to let Sims make coffee.
* Detective Amy Santiago from ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' seems to be this, as she for example thinks that salt and baking soda are interchangeable, on the principle that they're both white powders, which causes everyone to pretend to eat her food and dump in the toilet.
* Buffy of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' really can't cook, although she eventually learns enough to make a passable Thanksgiving dinner.
-->'''Willow:''' What kind of punch did you make?\\
'''Buffy:''' I made lemonade!\\
'''Willow:''' How much sugar did you use?\\
'''Buffy:''' Sugar? [Willow makes a face and spits it out]\\
Later... '''Willow:''' Cordelia, have some lemonade.
* Ria Parkinson in the sitcom ''Butterflies'' is possibly the world's worst cook, despite being a homemaking mum with a dentist husband and two grown sons. Her husband remarked that if she fed her lamb cutlets to his patients, he'd be a rich man overnight, and his dental practice would at least triple in size.
* ''Series/{{Cheers}}:''
** Diane is an awful cook, mainly because she's pretentious and decides to "get creative". This means she can't even make edible rice. Amazingly, despite Diane usually being so pretentious she can't ever admit she's wrong, she is well aware her cooking is terrible.
** Implied with Lilith, as part of the running gag about her being unable to do anything remotely feminine.
--->'''Frasier:''' Lasagne? I wasn't even thinking Italian!\\
'''Sam:''' I was closest. I said "something with meat".
* Oscar from ''Series/CornerGas''. According to Brent, his homemade beer tasted liked he [[TastesLikeFeet "beat a skunk to death with a salmon".]] When Hank is hired to demolish a barn and decides to blow it up, Oscar offers to help him. When Hank asks him what he knows about blowing things up, we are treated to a montage of stuff blowing up in Oscar's face, the last one being a salad.
-->'''Hank:''' How do you blow up a salad?\\
'''Oscar:''' Happens more than you think!
* Elvin from ''Series/TheCosbyShow'' once tried to impress Clair Huxtable by making a chocolate chocolate chip cake that was "extra-dense". It took Cliff a full minute to cut a piece, it weighed down the plate he put it on and he immediately got up and spit the one bite he took into a BIG wad of paper towels. His advice to Elvin:
-->'''Cliff:''' You don't want Mrs. Huxtable to eat that.\\
'''Elvin:''' Well, what do I do with it?\\
'''Cliff:''' I don't know. You're too far from the ocean.
* Susan from ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', being TheDitz, ruins every dish she cooks.
* Creator/DisneyChannel seems to love this trope:
** ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'':
*** Victor is normally an outstanding chef. However in one episode, he had Cory, Eddie, and Chelsea try out his mother's Pickled Artichoke Mash Potatoes, which didn't taste good at all, and the three tried in devious ways to get rid of the food before Victor found out. In the end, they finally confess, and Victor himself concedes that he hated the recipe himself.
*** Ironically, Chelsea herself becomes this in the spinoff series ''Series/RavensHome''. In the pilot episode, she accidentally set a fire while trying to cook twice and Levi even ordered pizza in case she decided to cook again. In the third episode, the CrankyLandlord accused her of trying to poison him with the coffee she made.
** ''Series/{{Hannah Montana}}'' has this as a running gag:
*** Robby cooking eggs with the shells still on.
*** Miley breaking a filling and later hurting her unfilled tooth on a huge toffee bomb (she was scared to go to the dentist).
*** A massive hair getting into the food on more than one occasion.
*** Jackson mistaking Roxie’s cold remedy for soup and eating it, requiring Roxie to make an antidote, which is presumably even more foul-tasting.
*** Mamaw’s lima beans.
*** As a child, Miley ate a few too many raspberry pies in a pie-eating contest. Now, she can’t even smell raspberry perfume without wanting to throw up. Needless to say, her interview about said perfume did not go over well...
*** The cream cheese cake Thor gives to Jackson. The quote suggests not so much that it tastes/looks bad as that it's a total NutritionalNightmare.
--->'''Jackson:''' “I gained five pounds just looking at the thing.”
** A RunningGag on ''Series/GoodLuckCharlie'' was how terrible of a cook Amy was. Her cooking skills were far outshined by her son PJ (but to be fair he did end up going to culinary school). Even ''Gabe'' was shown a better cook than her.
--->'''Teddy''': I should've known it was a dream. It all started with mom cooking something delicious.
*** Every year she's managed to burn the Thanksgiving Turkey to a crisp, to the point where PJ expected it and purchased a spare Turkey. She ruined that one too by turning the heat on the deep fryer up too high, causing it to ''explode''.
*** Teddy isn't as bad, but seems to have inherited some of her mom's cooking skills
---->'''Teddy''': (''offering a spoonful to PJ'') It's New England clam chowder.\\
'''PJ''': (''tasting the chowder'') I'm not getting chowder, clams, or even England. It is '''new''' though.
** Ellen James from ''Series/DogWithABlog'' is said to be such a terrible cook that the other moms nicknamed her "Smellen". But unlike Amy, at least her husband and kids will eat what she serves them.
** Emma on ''Series/{{Jessie}}''. She was so inept that she put a frozen pizza in the ''dishwasher'' instead of the oven.
** Gladys and Murphy from the early seasons of ''Series/{{Bunkd}}'', ''Jessie'''s spinoff series. To the surprise of the campers, CampCook Murphy turns out to be a skilled chef that actually is capable of cooking good food when he's given reasonable ingredients to work with, but the camp's food budget is so small that the only meals we get to see are made out of inedible joke ingredients (such as "surf and turf" with "turf" taken from the camp football field). Furthermore, Gladys, the camp director, has been shown to cut corners around the camp, including knowingly buying spoiled or expired food to feed to the campers.
** The Russo family from ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' falls into this on occasion, most notably in one episode where Jerry and Theresa are seen preparing a "breakfast scramble" for their kids. It's really just a way for them to use all the old leftovers in their fridge.
--->'''Justin''': Can't our breakfast scramble at least have an egg in it?\\
'''Jerry''': (''reaching into the fridge for an egg'') Well technically it's not a leftover, but the ones we have are pretty old.
** ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOnDeck'': Zack and Cody always look forward to their mother's blueberry muffins... because they bounce like superballs and make great erasers.
* Lightly implied in ''Series/DoctorWho''. Amy Pond's mother brings her breakfast in bed on the day of her wedding, but says that since her father made it she might as well simply throw it out as it is "an atrocity".
* John Gage on ''{{Series/Emergency}}'': The one time he attempted to make dinner for the squad, it went horribly wrong even before they got a call and he left the oven on and burned it.
* Creator/FoodNetwork examples:
** ''Series/WorstCooksInAmerica'' is a reality cooking show featuring people who're obviously terrible cooks, and the people who compete were nominated by friends, relatives, spouses or significant others, or even themselves, and many of the people have even accidentally given others food poisoning through what they've cooked. The point of the show is to teach some [[LethalChef Lethal Chefs]] to become good enough cooks to actually make a restaurant-quality meal for a trio of food-expert judges.
** ''Series/{{Chopped}}'' can fall victim to this trope. Contestants have been known to undercook meat or [[{{Squick}} bleed into their food]]. A number of contestants have even used stuff after accidentally dropping it on the floor, without even washing it. [[ParanoiaFuel One of these was herself a cooking instructor]]. In another episode, cherimoya was a featured basket ingredient in the dessert round, with a warning: "Do not eat the seeds. Do not serve the seeds. They are not good for you; they might even kill you." Ted forgot "Do not cut or break the seeds," and one chef made the mistake of pureeing the cherimoya, thinking the seed fragments could be strained out (that only disperses the toxin), putting the chef back to square one.
** One ''Series/SweetGenius'' contestant used raw eggs in a dish. Chef Ron nearly threw him out of the kitchen on the spot.
* Malena in ''Series/ForYourLove''. There are plenty of jokes about her non-existent cooking skills -- for example in one episode, Mel has a daydream of her actually being a good cook, then reality sets in and he finds himself staring at a badly burnt casserole.
* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'s'' Daphne is a terrible cook, and uses it to her advantage when [[spoiler:she claims to be making [[FunnyForeigner goat's head stew and haggis]] so Frasier will eat out.]]
-->'''Frasier:''' [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] couldn't keep that woman's food down!
* Several examples from ''Series/{{Friends}}'':
** Rachel tries to prepare a traditional English trifle, but the pages of the recipe book get stuck together and she ends up making half a Shepherd's Pie: a trifle containing jam, custard, ladyfingers, and beef sautéed with peas and onions. Ross says that "ItTastesLikeFeet", but that [[ExtremeOmnivore doesn't stop Joey]]: "Custard? Good. Jam? Good. Meat? GOOD".
** Monica reviews a restaurant and calls the food inedible. "None of my friends could eat it, and one of them eats books!" ([[ExtremeOmnivore Joey]], of course.)
** In "The One with the Bullies", Joey packs an olive loaf and ham spread sandwich for the roadtrip to meet Phoebe's biological father and is forced to throw it out of the car to distract Phoebe's stepmother's dog. According to Rachel, this tactic is less than successful: "(that dog) will lick itself but it will not touch your sandwich, what does that tell you?"
** In general, Monica is an excellent cook, but in the seventh season, she tried to reverse engineer Phoebe's grandmother's cookie recipe and did a lot of baking. Most were quite good, except for [[NoodleImplements batch 16]], which made Ross throw up.
* ''Series/FullHouse'':
** Becky has this reputation, one episode even has a B-plot with her and Michelle learning to cook together.
--->'''Becky''': Remember that sausage and lima bean casserole I made? I called it my Sunday Surprise.
--->'''Danny''': We called it our ''Monday'' Surprise.
--->'''Jesse''': I was still getting surprised on Tuesday.
** Joey, too, as no one wants to bother to consume his homemade dishes of choice: ''meat muffins'' and '''flounder tarts'''.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Tyrion Lannister has brought CampFollower Shae to the capital against the express orders of his father. He suggests hiding her presence by sending her to the kitchens.
-->'''Shae:''' Every man who has tasted my cooking has told me what a good whore I am.
** Brienne learns the hard way that Pod has no cooking experience when he doesn't even know to skin a rabbit before cooking it. And then he manages to set it on fire.
* Kaoru Mitsuki of "{{Series/Garo}}" series Fame's first on-screen attempt at cooking for her friend requires their immediate hospitalization. And it just goes downhill from there.
* Lisa Douglas from ''Series/GreenAcres''. Her infamous "hotscakes" have the consistency of bricks. Mr. Douglas was terrified when his neighbor, Mr. Ziffel, asks Lisa for a shopping bag full of her pancakes. Mr. Douglas, very worried, asks him if he's going to eat them. Mr. Douglas calms down when he finds out Mr. Ziffel only wants them to reshingle the roof of his barn.
* Ralph Malph from ''Series/HappyDays''. When Richie, Potsy and Ralph move out of home to share an apartment, we learn Ralph uses lighter fluid to ignite his cherries jubilee.
* ''Series/HellsKitchen'' features as least one of these every season. [[FridgeBrilliance Which probably explains why Chef Ramsay gets angry so often.]]
** Season 3's Johanna got kicked out for trying to make crab spaghetti with crab that was clearly rancid. She's ''lucky'' that Ramsay caught her mistake before the spaghetti was served to any customers, or she might have been a ''literal'' lethal chef.
** A special example is Matt's "Exotic Tartare" from Season 4, containing venison, diver scallops, caviar, and ''white chocolate''. Creator/GordonRamsay takes a mouthful and lasts just long enough to note that there were capers in the dish before doubling over to hurl. Twice. Throughout that season, Matt's teammates tell him to shut up whenever he comes up with a suggestion.
** Antonia from Season 8 also made Ramsay vomit with her signature dish, a supposed Mardi Gras Gumbo that looked like "liquid shit", as Ramsay put it. When she got upset "it wasn't up to par", he made everyone else taste it, with such descriptions as "like a big bowl of mud" and "I'd rather have a cat shit in my mouth". It actually wound up being the tiebreaker against the Red Team as a result.
* ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'' also had a recurring character called Falafel who was a lethal chef and a parody of modern-day fast food franchises. "The Wedding Of Alcmene" and "Surprise" demonstrate he can make reasonably good traditional meals when hired for catering, but he loves to experiment at his own stand and is always confused why people keep coughing up his latest concoctions. According to Iolaus' MirrorUniverse counterpart, Falafel's counterpart is a SupremeChef.
* Two examples from ''Series/HomeImprovement'':
** Jill Taylor, though half of this is via [[InformedAbility Informed Inability]] (Tim and other people's comments); she's shown to be at least decent more than once.
** Tim once tried to cook fish in the dishwasher. (ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime) He ended up with 'liquid fish'. (It would have worked had he done it on the dry cycle as he was told to do, rather than 'pot scrubber'.) On other times, his attempts to cook have fallen victim to TimTaylorTechnology and OvenLogic (usually at the same time, resulting in something like a grill that resembles a house fire when switched on and instantly turns whatever is placed on it into ash). However, he's been shown to actually be a good cook when he can be made to actually focus on the dish and not try to get creative.
* The third series of ''Series/HoratioHornblower'' has Styles, a prominent lower-deck character as Horatio's steward. He attempts to boil coffee and generally renders all his food inedible. Lt. Bush says it best:
--->'''Bush:''' Learn to cook or I'll cook you.
* ''Series/HouseOfAnubis'':
** Victor proves to be one after he cooks breakfast for the students. The breakfast consisted of sticky mush that none of the students could even get out of the bowl or off of the spoon. They decided to get from the vending machines instead.
** Jerome once tried to make a special sauce to go with the hot-dogs he and Alfie were using in a recipe contest. It ended up with a messy kitchen, a horrible smell, and Jerome going crazy, prompting Mara to help him.
* In ''Series/{{How I Met Your Mother}}'', according to Future Ted, Marshall makes terrible pancakes.
* ''Series/ICarly'': In "iStill Psycho", Nora's invites the iCarly gang over for a "Norwegian" supper, which is really a very weird mixture of strange things that that the protagonists find difficult to eat.
* Mai of ''Series/IdolXWarriorMiracleTunes'' cannot cook. In Episode 6, she cheerfully creates a disgusting-looking cake on Ryo's cooking show, and in one episode, Fuka tries to stop her from making snacks for Akari and Hikari.
* Lucy from ''Series/ILoveLucy'' is bad, but she's demonstrably better than both Ricky and Fred, as shown in the ADayInHerApron episode. Ricky ends up flooding the whole apartment with rice when he assumes the proper portion is ''one pound per person''. And Fred, in charge of the dessert, decided to save time, by baking all seven layers of the cake, ''including the frosting,'' into a large flat pancake shaped... ''thing.''
* Maddie Magellan from ''Series/JonathanCreek''. Perhaps not truly lethal, but upon opening her oven and discovering the contents to be ''in flames'', she declared that it needed "Two more minutes" and closed the oven door again.
* ''Franchise/KamenRider'' has a few:
** ''Series/KamenRiderDenO'' has two contrasting examples. Airi can brew a mean cup of coffee, but she also makes health foods for her brother Ryotaro that are... less than pleasant. Think "sesame seed milkshake". In one episode the siblings are feuding because Ryotaro called the authorities to dispose of one of Airi's stews, claiming it was a biohazard. Naomi, the waitress on the [[CoolTrain DenLiner]] has the opposite problem. She can prepare tasty foods like rice and pudding, but her coffee is a powdery, whipped cream-topped disaster that is only enjoyed by the Imagin.
** A Magazine/TeleviKun DVD released for ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'' deals with the main characters cooking donburi. Shotaro's cooking is perfectly fine, except that his obsession with being a hardboiled detective means he hardboils his eggs to ridiculous degrees, making them as hard as rocks and completely inedible.
** In ''Series/KamenRiderBuild'', the good guys hang out in a coffee shop run by parental figure Soichi Isurugi, whose coffee is so bad that everyone there drinks canned coffee instead. [[spoiler:It eventually turned out that Soichi has been possessed by the evil alien Evolto for over a decade; his sense of taste is completely different, and he doesn't care enough to learn how to make coffee properly. At the end of the series we find out that the actual Soichi's coffee is delicious.]]
* The point of the British RealityShow ''Kitchen Criminals'' is to get horrendous cooks around England and have world class chefs teach them how to cook fine cuisine for a food critic. Some of the contestants when they first started tried to serve shrimp raw or fry an apple core.
* ''Series/MakoMermaidsAnH2OAdventure'': Ondina notices that every time she cooks, the others go straight to the café for food. As it turns out, she's too impatient to follow instructions and ends up ruining her dishes with whatever idea to improve them or speed up cooking time. By the end of the episode, she makes a dish that looks passable but still tastes nasty enough to send the others running to the café.
* Naomi of ''Series/MamasFamily'' is a notoriously horrible cook. For example, her "international stew" consists of green beans, corn, sauerkraut, and Spaghettios. Her chili recipe is a similar mishmash of ingredients that don't belong anywhere near each other, and there was also the time she tried to start a catering business, and ended up giving all of her clients food poisoning.
* Peg on ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' is this in the episodes where she actually does cook (mostly the early ones). Most of the time, the Bundys just eat take-out and fast food (or steal from the neighbors) because Peg is too lazy to cook. Just to show what her cooking can do, In one episode, the Bundy kids won a home concert from Anthrax and 50 of their friends. A blizzard snowed them in. Since they couldn't go out for food, they hit the fridge.
-->'''Bud:''' Well, there's always mom's Foil Wrapped Mystery Pack.\\
''(Band scarfs it down)''\\
'''Kelly:''' Wow, even dad won't eat the Mystery Pack. These guys are cool!\\
'''Band Members:''' Whoa, the colors. The ''colors''! / If it just came out of the fridge, why is it hot? / Ow! Mine bit me!
* Downplayed in ''Series/{{MASH}}''; while the quality of the 4077th's army food is low in general, Pernelli's skills as a cook aren't much help either. Charles once had to tell him that soup is not a ''solid'' object.
* ''Series/TheMiddle'':
** Sue once tried to make a spaghetti dinner for her parents' anniversary. She got so distracted that she burnt it to a crisp.
** The Heck family barely uses the oven to the point where they ''store their aunt Edie's quilt in it''. The oven still works, by the way.
*** In one episode Brick set the stove on fire because of this when he preheated the oven to make pizza rolls.
*** In subsequent episodes, characters can be seen pulling out a singed quilt before turning the oven on.
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': Joyce Barnaby is a bad cook. However, her husband (Tom) and daughter (Cully) humor her and eat her cooking anyway. Joyce's bad cooking seems to be a little private joke between Tom and Cully.
* Billy the Blue Ranger from ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers''. In "Switching Places", he reveals his terrible cooking skills when he tries to make a cheese soufflé. It explodes.
* On ''Series/TheMunsters'', Grandpa's lasagna has been known to stink up the entire house.
* A running gag in ''Series/MyFamily'' is that Susan, the mother of the titular family, is the worst cook in the world. One Christmas episode featured not only chocolate raisin turkey with caramel (due to pages of the cookbook being stuck together) but also this exchange.
-->'''Ben:''' Before that was the year of the turkey.\\
'''Susan:''' OK, so it needed to be in for a bit longer.\\
'''Ben:''' Susan, it was still alive.
* ''Series/MyParentsAreAliens''. Virtually everything cooked by Sophie Johnson uses rather... nonstandard ingredients. Like sausage cake, or chicken nuggets -- complete with bones, feathers and "fresh" chemical additives.
* TV's Frank, quite literally, in an episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'':
-->'''Dr. Forrester:''' What? You baked a '''person''' in it? An hour at 350?
* ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'' confirmed that you CAN tenderize meat with explosives and safely use C4 explosive as cooking fuel.
* ''Series/MyWifeAndKids'' has [[TheDitz Claire]], who in one episode tries to cook a chicken for her parents' anniversary by taking said chicken into the oven for hours ''but forgets to set the switch on to "cook"'', resulting in the chicken being unfit for human consumption.
* The Netflix series ''Series/NailedIt'' invites lethal chefs to compete in making extravagant desserts, and awards $10 000 to the person who fails the least. While the premise is a bit forced -- it would be hard for even skilled bakers to complete some of the challenges in the time allotted -- pictures of the contestants' home baking show that nope, they really are that bad. Contestants are given recipes and instructions, but surprisingly many of them never even glance at them. Mistakes made on the show include not cooling cakes before icing them (causing the icing to melt), forgetting to put filling between cake layers (resulting in a very dry finished product), and in one really outstanding case, leaving the actual cake mix out of the batter and putting a mixture of eggs, milk and oil in the oven (the judges intervened on that one).
* In ''Series/TheNanny'' episode "Close Shave", C.C. Babcock has been attending a cooking class, and gets Maxwell to try some of her cooking (Fran ''looked'' at it, and thought it was dog food.) He reluctantly does so, and spends the entire episode violently ill. Everybody blamed C.C.'s cooking, but as it turns out, it was actually appendicitis. This all leads to a scene where Fran, [[ItMakesSenseInContext disguised as a candy striper]], is asked to shave Maxwell in preparation for surgery....
* ''Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'': the things the title screen warns you that the guide will help you with is "gross school lunches". The food on the tray routinely crawls off if you take your eyes off of it.
* Aethelwynne from ''Series/{{Pixelface}}''. In "The Game's Up", Aethelwynne promises to prepare some elven delicacies as a treat for Rex's going away party. Sgt. Riely's gift to Rex is a promise to Rex that he'll eat Rex's portion for him.
* Cheyenne on ''Series/{{Reba}}'' has this reputation. Apparently [[DumbBlonde being easily distracted and forgetful as she is]] doesn't help when cooking.
* A few examples from ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** Rimmer only attempted to cook once in "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIBetterThanLife Better Than Life]]", but it was enough for both his living crewmates to require stomach-pumps. To be absolutely fair to Rimmer, this was many seasons before he would get his Hard Light form, and had to rely on the Skutters (some 3 million years out of warranty) to cook for him.
--->'''Lister:''' Rimmer, real dumplings, proper dumplings, when they're properly cooked to perfection, real, proper dumplings should not ''bounce''!
** Dave Lister's own attempts at cooking aren't much better. During the earliest episodes, Lister tries to qualify to become an officer, so that he would outrank Rimmer. Lister goes for the Chef exam (because even the ship's cook outranked Rimmer), but fails horribly. One reason might be that Lister, being a total slob, understands recipes not as guidelines but merely as suggestions. Another reason is that Lister's overly fond of curries, and he claims that after years on a curry diet his tastebuds have suffered. Lister does try to cook from time to time, but his attempts always suffer from ''some'' fatal flaw, such as stuffing sausages with curry powder. His "Shami Kebabs Diablo" (take exactly one teaspoon out of a full tin of chili powder. Put the ''[[CutASliceTakeTheRest rest]]'' into the mixture) put his friend Peterson in sickbay for a week. Or cooking a three-course meal which ''looks'' fine at first glance, but due to lack of proper plates and eating utensils is served on (and in) items that Lister raided from sickbay. All properly washed and sterilized beforehand, of course! Still, it puts the Cat off eating.
--->'''Cat:''' This isn't a meal, this is an ''autopsy''!
*** While Lister's fried egg chutney sandwich in "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIThanksForTheMemory Thanks for the Memory]]" is quite deadly in its own right (Rimmer describes its taste as "melting his teeth"), the fact that the recipe was obtained from a biological warfare book (he uses it as a HideousHangoverCure) lampshades this aspect and Rimmer finds the deadliness of it to be its crowning aspect[[note]]more specifically, he states the sandwich's horrific list of ingredients somehow still work when put together; he ''does'' enjoy the sandwich and equates it to how he considers Lister to be "all wrong", yet still respected by the people around him, in contrast to him supposedly doing everything right and remaining a loser[[/note]], putting this recipe in the delicious but deadly territory.
--->'''Lister:''' You have to eat it quickly or the bread will melt.
*** Oddly enough, when he was preparing for the exam Lister did make a beautiful looking cake. He might have passed the test if he hadn't been trying to make roast beef instead. In the next series, Lister makes another pleasant looking cake to celebrate Rimmer's "Deathday". As with a lot of Lister's character, it seems [[BrilliantButLazy he can cook fairly well, but he's happy with overspiced curry]], so that's all he ever makes.
*** In "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIPetePartII Pete Part II]]", Lister fed a ''T. rex'' a giant bowl of "cow vindaloo". It took two tastes of it then ran for a drink. The other results were unfit to show on television. Though in that case, it was more or less what he was [[GoneHorriblyRight trying to do]] as earlier it had eaten a time-manipulation device and they needed it back.
* In ''Series/SarabhaiVsSarabhai'', Monisha is such a terrible cook that, in one episode, it results in Maya ''losing her voice'' after eating her food.
* The title character of ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' has vast experience with all kinds of alien races, years of travel through time and space, remarkable knowledge of alien technology, and general overall brilliance and awesomeness.....but she can't cook. Although it's not mentioned very often onscreen, her ineptitude in all things culinary is apparently a very common occurrence, given that, by the beginning of Series Four, her son Luke is so accustomed to it that he sends Clyde a text message casually informing him that, "Mum set the kitchen on fire again..."
* On ''Series/SeaPatrol'', when usual chef Bomber is off-ship, Flynn tells RO to cook instead. RO openly protests as Charge reminds Flynn of the last time he tried back in Season 1, with a queasy expression. As it happens, RO's assistant in this, Bird, turns out to be a great chef, much to everyone's relief.
-->'''RO''': We all die...not my fault!
-->'''Charge''': We ''will'' die.
* Apparently Isabelle Lightwood of ''Series/{{Shadowhunters}}'' is this, as Jace quips that Simon entering a room full of {{Muggle}}-killing runes might be less lethal than consuming her cooking.
* The prison chef on ''Series/TheSlammer'' passes out after eating some of his own cooking, and the Governor is no better when he attempts to take over the role.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
*** Neelix is legendarily bad, often cooking meals that are disgusting to the human palate. When he sticks to the basics or uses a recipe then things turn out fine, but when he tries to show off his exotic skills (anything with Talaxian spices is a warning bell) the wheels come off. In one episode, he nearly caused ship-wide failure by infecting the ship's neural gel packs with bacteria from curdling cheese.
*** Captain Janeway manages to ruin food that comes ''from the replicator''!
*** The series finale, "Endgame", tells us that the Bolian crewman Chell wants to take Neelix's place as the chef. He presents some...interesting dishes in his proposal to the captain, including "Red Alert Chili" and "Chicken Warp Cordon Blu" (say it aloud). Thankfully, the ship made it home before his skills could be put to the test.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "Time Squared", Riker invites a few of the other officers over to show off his experimental cooking: an omelette prepared with alien eggs. Most of them are clearly attempting to conceal their distaste, while Worf [[ExtremeOmnivore eagerly scarfs up his portion]].
--->'''Riker:''' A cook is only as good as his ingredients...
--->(''beat as everybody watches Worf finish his serving'')
--->'''Worf:''' Delicious.
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
*** Quark was apparently a Lethal Chef, necessitating certain defensive measures.
--->'''Quark:''' This is my disruptor pistol. The one I used to carry in the old days, when I was serving on that Ferengi freighter.\\
'''Odo:''' I thought you were the ship's cook.\\
'''Quark:''' That's right, and every member of that crew thought he was a food critic.
*** At one point late in the last season, Sisko walks in on his now-wife Kasidy Yates to find she's tried to cook dinner for him and failed miserably. (This is a setting where most food is [[MatterReplicator replicated]], remember.) He spends a few moments mourning the loss of the hot peppers he'd spent several weeks growing himself. The Sisko men are gourmet chefs with Grandpa Sisko running a Creole restaurant on Earth.
** ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'': Apparently when Alternate!Kirk was in prison, he learned from his cellmate how to make plomeek soup in a toilet.
* '' Franchise/SuperSentai'':
** Mako from ''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger'', complete with dubious knife-cutting style (she actually uses her Shinkenmaru to cut the poor veggies!). By episode 25, the sight of her holding an apron has traumatized the Kuroko. The only person who can eat her food and genuinely enjoy it is Kotoha. The last time she is shown cooking, the Kuroko are standing by with antacids and ''a stretcher'' since Takeru was sick in bed for days after the previous time she had cooked. The Kuroko actually have standing orders to keep Mako out of the kitchen at all costs, but she managed to slip past them that time.
** [[TheDitz Eri]] in ''Series/TensouSentaiGoseiger'' prefers to simply throw whatever food is lying around together and serve it as food. Only fellow [[{{Cloudcuckooland}} Skick Tribesman]] Alata is shown looking at it with anything resembling excitement. Her attempts at following a recipe don’t work much better, as she ends up burning a cake.
--->'''Agri:''' I know we’ve hit a brick wall, but I didn’t think you’d actually be serving us bricks.
* ''Series/{{Thanks}}'': Grammy complains that Polly burns everything she cooks, but Polly's tendency to burn food is justified by the difficulty of cooking over an open fire.
* Jackie from ''Series/That70sShow''. She rarely tries to cook (as she put it, she was hoping to get on by her looks), but when she does try, the results are disastrous.
* All of the female roommates on ''Series/ThreesCompany''. (Which is the main reason why they asked Jack to move in in the first place.)
* In an episode of ''Series/TooCloseForComfort'', Henry's niece April sets up a meeting between Henry and his brother Bill (who is also April's father), to reunite them after years of having not spoken to one another; [[CloudCuckooLander Monroe]] decides to make Cheesecake Mischak, a cheesecake with arsenic as an ingredient (the recipe is intended to be used to kill rats) for the occasion, not realizing the cheesecake's intended purpose. Subverted in the fact that Monroe later reveals he left out the arsenic, as he couldn't find it at the grocery store; this is made all the more hilarious, as Henry's brother is taken to the hospital to have his stomach pumped, after he had eaten the supposedly poisoned cake. Bill later finds out, though when Henry tells April, his wife Muriel, his wife Jackie and Monroe not to tell Bill that he had his stomach pumped for nothing.
* Creator/JeremyClarkson on ''Series/TopGear''. See the [[GargleBlaster "Manly V8 Smoothie"/"Desperate Shag in a Skip"/"Bloody Awful"]] for the best example. Although there is also the time his attempt to make chips on a filmed caravan holiday with his co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May resulted in their caravan and a neighboring caravan burning down. (It later came out that the fire in their own caravan was staged for the show, but the accidental spread to the neighboring caravan was not.)
* Taken literally in ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'': Evelyn's first husband died of food poisoning.
--> '''Evelyn''': I was a young bride! No one told me you don't keep fish in a drawer!
* ''Series/{{Victorious}}'': Jade claims the one time her dad cooked her breakfast, she spent the rest of the day vomiting.
* ''Series/WelcomeBackKotter'' had a running gag about Mrs. Kotter's "famous tuna casserole." It's not known to have ever put anybody in a hospital, but at one point, Mr. Kotter noted that "''nobody'' puts ''prunes'' in a tuna casserole.
* Joxer of ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess''. In one episode, Xena and Gabrielle are incapacitated (by skin fungus and head lice) and it falls to Joxer to defeat the entire invading army -- by cooking for them. He's actually successful. Too bad our heroines discover his "skill" by first falling victim to it themselves....
* Barth from ''Series/YouCantDoThatOnTelevision'' was known to blow his nose in the burger buns. The source of the meat was even worse. Anyone who heard where it came from would vomit. Said vomit was promptly used as sauce.
* On ''Series/YoungHercules'', multiple allusions are made to the AcademyOfAdventure's unseen cook being quite bad. Iolaus is typically the only one asking for seconds because he's a BigEater. The cadets would actually be more likely to pay to eat at Kora's inn than eat the Academy food for free. When the place was hosting a Parents' Day, Hercules hoped Alcmene (herself a SupremeChef) would give the cook some much needed pointers.

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