History Main / LethalChef

*** Quoth the cat himself: "The only way Jon knows my dinner's finished is when it sets off the smoke alarm."

-->-- '''Cammy White''', ''VideoGame/StreetFighter4''

-->-- '''CammyWhite''', ''VideoGame/StreetFighter4''

-> ''"Terrible, isn't it? On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most revolting and one being almost edible, I believe that rating this recipe would require the use of exponents."''
-->-- '''Invidia''', ''[[Literature/CodexAlera First Lord's Fury]]'', on the Vord Queen's cooking

* ''SengokuRance'' gives you Kouhime, whose dango is actually praised by a ninja... as a ''great assassination tool''. And she made said dango ''under the guidance'' of the ninja, who is a SupremeChef.

Compare the CordonBleughChef who can cook just fine, but often gets too creative, the OneNoteCook who can ace one dish, but otherwise falls into this trope, and the EvilChef who just likes to see you suffer. See also LethallyStupid when the character is so dumb it would be dangerous to let him cook. Contrast the SupremeChef, who is the exact opposite of this trope, the DisgruntledChef who has nothing but contempt for his customers and peers, and the ChefOfIron, who can be either bad or good but is lethal outside of their cooking.

* The few times [[WebVideo/StuartAshen Ashens]]' Chef Excellence [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything actually attempts to do his job]], he's this in spades.

** Jon Arbuckle also qualifies. Garfield remarked that he's the [[EpicFail only cook who could ruin cereal]], right before Jon sets the bacon aflame.

* I the Franchise/{{Nasuverse}}...

* ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}''
** Hisui cooks so badly it's considered poison if anyone but her eats it. For various reasons, no one but Ciel is willing to tell her how bad she is.

* Hisui from ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'' cooks so badly it's considered poison if anyone but her eats it. For various reasons, no one but Ciel is willing to tell her how bad she is.

** Caster in ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia''; since she's a Greek witch, is entirely unfamiliar with Japanese ingredients. Kuzuki eats everything she makes, but after a while, he has enough and asks Shirou to teach Caster. Rider is mentioned to have a similar issue, though not as bad as Caster.

%%** Caster in ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'', despite her otherwise impressive A level in Item Creation.

** Caster in ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'', despite her otherwise impressive A level in Item Creation.

** Andy is somwhere between this and CordonBleughChef-- while she's capable of making perfectly edible food, because she's a health nut Andy usually makes meals out of tofu, lima beans, and whatever other sort of "healthy" foods that frequently make her family sick and they hate the taste of even if it doesn't. Her family constantly complains about her cooking and attempts to sabotage it, but she's either oblivious or doesn't care. One of the reasons Andy hates her own mother is because she's the [[SupremeChef direct opposite.]]

* "Cookie", the military cook from ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'' has a knack for bad cooking (a common stereotype of military cooks). Jokes about his meatballs are the most common. Thankfully, one of the soldiers he caters to is Sargent Snorkel, who will eat anything.

* Several ''Brother Juniper'' strips make cracks at the title character's lack of cooking skills. One such strip has unidentifiable blackish lumps on everyone's plates.

* Several of Father Justin [=McCarthy=]'s ''Brother Juniper'' comics make cracks at the title character's lack of cooking skills. One such comic has unidentifiable blackish lumps on everyone's plates.

* In TheEmiyaClan, Kiritsugu Jr manages not only to make food that you can't eat, but also to make food that eats ''you''. Whatever he cooks somehow comes to life as some kind of EldritchAbomination. This includes (but isn't limited to): Sliced cucumbers becoming tentacle beasts, boiled water becoming flaming water spirits, roasted chicken turning into an undead monstrosity that is almost impossible to kill, and fried bacon becoming sentient, escaping into the basement, building an underground civilization based on the worship of his daughter, and vowing vengeance on the surface world.

* The Military Cook from ''{{Sturmtruppen}}'' is the TropeCodifier as far as Italian comics are concerned-and [[BrutalHonesty will admit that anyone who willingly eats his cooking is insane]]. In one series of strips he had living ferocious spaghetti that he would sick on anyone who insulted his cooking-and it was nowhere near the worst thing he cooked-that is either the man-eating soup (he had tried to use lightning to cook, and [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} the lunch came to life]]), a concoction that turns soldiers into hairy monsters and gives addiction (the soldiers had complained the lunch was always the same, and [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor demanded he tried to be creative]]. [[GoneHorriblyRight He decided to please them]]), or the ''cholera-infected lunch''.

* Music/TomLehrer:
** The mess sergeant from ''"It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier"'':
-->Our old mess sergeant's taste buds had been shot off in the war
-->But his savory collations add to our espirit de corps
-->To think of all the marvelous ways
-->They're using plastics nowadays
-->It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier.
** Another Lehrer song where this trope makes an appearance is "She's My Girl."

* Two examples from ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'':

* In ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'', we first meet Mrs. Lovett while she's telling Sweeney (and us) how awful her meat pies are ("The Worst Pies in London"). The song "God, That's Good!" subverts this trope, as it suggests that Mrs. Lovett is actually a pretty good cook, she just needs to buy high-quality ingredients ([[spoiler: such as with the money taken from Pirelli's corpse]]).

* Let this be known, Madgie cannot make Kool-Aid [[http://akaichounokoe.deviantart.com/art/Why-Bunny-is-afraid-of-Kool-Aid-321367778]]. She included some rather unconventional ingredients, including [[spoiler: diesel, kerosene, butane, propane, Red Bull, and turpentine. As you may expect, [[EpicFail Bunny was hospitalized and was paralyzed down her left side for a week.]] ]]

Compare the CordonBleughChef who can cook just fine, but often gets too creative, the OneNoteCook who can ace one dish, but otherwise falls into this trope, and the EvilChef who just likes to see you suffer. See also LethallyStupid when the character is so dumb it would be dangerous to let him cook. Contrast the SupremeChef, who is the exact opposite of this trope, and the ChefOfIron, who can be either bad or good but is lethal outside of their cooking.

* Lavender Brown is implied to be one in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9602506/4/The-New-Kid The New Kid]]''.