Chef of Iron

Their knives aren't just for siu mei.
"I'll show you 'mere cook' after I fillet each and every last one of you bastards!"
—Sanji, One Piece

A Lethal Chef is someone whose cooking is so terrible that it could fall under the Geneva Convention as an inhumane weapon. A Supreme Chef is a superb cook, particularly the kind that participate in televised Cooking Duels where "every battle, reputations are put on the line."

Combine the lethal potential with sublime cooking skills and you get the Chef of Iron: a fighting cook, someone who can kick your ass and prepare a gourmet meal with equal ease. He/she is a bad person to have as an enemy but a good person to have invite you over to dinner.

Chefs of Iron fall into different, frequently overlapping types, not limited to:

  • "Ordinary" (or more ordinary than the following examples at least) people who are skilled in normal combat and mundane, if excellent cookery; one or the other tends to be his day job. If the day job is fighting (i.e. military, police work) being a cook may show the character has a sensitive side (sometimes a case of Real Men Wear Pink); if cooking is the day job, they may be leading a double life of hidden Badass. Or, they might be a chef for an army or suchlike, where they do both at the same time. In this form, may overlap with the Almighty Janitor.
  • A cook whose special skills include using cooking implements in combat. They may be an Improbable Weapon User; there are many ways you can hurt people with boiling liquids, big chef's knives, eating utensils and cutlery, heavy skillets, etc.. An angry Apron Matron brandishing a skillet or rolling pin at you may cross over into this trope slightly, especially if it's their primary means of defending themselves. Compare I Know Madden Kombat.
  • A chef for whom cooking is their means of fighting, and we're not talking about Cooking Duels. Entangling noodles, golems made of food, chemical weapons made from hot pepper sauce, the sky's pantry's the limit. May be combined with kitchen implements as above. In this form, they are practicing Martial Arts and Crafts.

May overlap with Evil Chef as a villainous version. Compare Battle Butler.

Not to be confused with a certain culinary contest, in case you didn't bother checking out that pothole above.

Examples of Chef of Iron include:

Anime and Manga

  • When the crew of the Bebop have food to cook, Badass ex-cop bounty hunter Jet can be counted on to whip something up, even if he only has one or two ingredients to work with.
  • Kouji Kabuto from Mazinger Z was a Chef of Iron in the original manga. He is shown on screen to be the one that cooks for his household breakfast. It is also implied that his cooking is pretty good no matter how ridiculous it is (his croquette is huge (Sayaka said it’s a Mazinger class croquette referring to its size) and can shoot Rust Tornado (Unleash wind when cut) and Rocket Punch (launch a part of it when its cut, directly to Shiro's mouth), and of course he kicks ass in battle.
  • Ukyo from Ranma ½ may be one of the more famous examples: a practitioner of Martial Arts Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake-pizza...stuff) and wields spatulas from normal to giant size.
    • Cologne, when she moves to Japan, opens a noodle shop and picks up some martial arts moves of the entangling noodles variety. She also has her granddaughter Shampoo learn Martial-Arts Takeout Delivery.
  • Sanji from One Piece is the archetypal "ordinary" Fighting Cook. He fights with his feet to save his cooking hands from damage and considers a Chef of Iron Type 3 to be a personal insult (he REALLY hates it when people waste food). He actually used knives once, to peel a Type 3 fighting in a noodle armor (it's okay because they were in a kitchen). Then he immediately put the knives away and switched back to kicking. There's also 'Red Shoes' Zeff, who trained him after simultaneously being Captain and Cook of his own ship.
    • Baratie, Zeff's restaurant at sea, is actually filled completely with Type 2 Fighting Chefs, who are so fearsome that customers visit the restaurant just as much to watch them fight as eat their cooking.
    • Wanz from the Water 7 Arc is a villainous example. His Ramen Kenpo fighting style involves the combatant swallowing noodles and blowing them out his nose, using them as weapons and armor. Unfortunately for Wanz, while this makes him a decent fighter, it makes his cooking very unhygienic. Most everyone who sees this finds it disgusting and refuse to eat his cooking. He's also no match for Sanji, who finds himself able to use such a foe as a loophole in his "never use your hands" style by fighting him the same way he'd prepare pasta.
  • The anime Bistro Recipe/Fighting Foodons essentially turned Type 3 into Mons style food themed monsters.
  • Akito Tenkawa from Martian Successor Nadesico... Ace Pilot and restaurant-level chef.
  • Sebastian of Black Butler can go kick some ass and be home in time to prepare a five-star meal.
  • Bianchi from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Attacks enemies with her Poison Cooking.
  • Shell and Leon from Chuuka Ichiban (mistranslated as Cooking Master Boy). The former has a steel staff and the latter has seven knives including a large cleaver for cutting cows open. Following the context of the show, all these are simply fantastic cooking implements, but their owners are well able to put them to lethal use whenever they need to. Also in the series, they've faced opponents who are clearly superhuman as well as a ninja chef.
  • Chao Lingshen of Mahou Sensei Negima. Chef and owner of the Chao Bao Zi restaurant and Magitek-using Time Master Big Bad of the Mahora Festival Story Arc.
  • In the Cyborg 009 series, Chang Changku/006 is a former Chinese chef turned cyborg - and he still cooks in his spare time. And he even uses his fire-breathing powers in the kitchen!
    • In the 2001 series, he manages to re-open his restaurant and proves that his cooking skills haven't gone down at all.
  • The second season of Slayers has in one episode a chef who knows how to prepare Dragon Cuisine. Of course, the first step in cooking a dragon is collecting fresh ingredients.
  • In Hunter X Hunter, two of the test-givers in the Hunter Exam were "Gourmet Hunters", who specialized in tracking down rare foods and ingredients and were expert cooks, but were just as capable of kicking ass as any other Hunter; in particular, the Action Girl of the duo, the Tsundere Menchi, almost killed a guy with her bare hands when he pressed her Berserk Button by openly doubting her Chef of Iron credentials. Then, when she had to come up with an impromptu test, Menchi told the aspirants to get a very rare kind of egg inside a very dangerous canyon... and to set the example, she easily got it herself. Almost everyone else got almost killed by merely trying.
  • Makoto/Sailor Jupiter of Sailor Moon: Being a soldier of justice, she's also a very good cook and respectable domestic figure (she has to be, given she lives alone and was orphaned) which balances out her tough bruiser personality.
  • Tenii in Shin Koihime Musou. She impresses the main cast with her cooking at a local tavern, and is called on to prove her skill by Sousou. Then she grabs a raging bull by the horns and throws it into the air.
  • Toriko
  • Simon Brezhnev from Durarara!! is a Russian sushi chef and former member of the special forces. He demonstrates veritable Charles Atlas Superpowers, jumping down several stories and stopping an equally strong guy throwing a vending machine mid-throw! And still he's a pacifist and only fights to stop fights with minimal violence. It's implied that the boss of the Russian Sushi is just as badass, though he's more subdued about it.
  • After more than a decade (viewer time) of being little more than the munchkin in the kitchen, Tenchi Muyo!’s Sasami Masaki Jurai showed in the third OVA series that as well as cooking up a storm on a regular basis, she could not only out-think a highly-trained and heavily-armed Galaxy Police officer, but also hand her ass to her with little effort. Sasami would have been about nine years old at the time, and did not appear to use her divine connections or avatar powers at the time--just a quarterstaff that she kept tucked away in her hair. Seriously.
  • Masaru Aoki from Hajime no Ippo, a ramen restaurant cook who also is training to become a professional boxer.
  • Shiro Takamachi of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Baker and owner of the popular Midoriya Cafe who also happens to be a former ninja-assassin bodyguard.
  • Sai Saici of G Gundam is a Type-1 with shades of Type-2. Not only is his food delicious, his cooking is quite showy, and quite a crowd-pleaser. His combat-skills, however, are unrelated to cooking - he uses basic Shaolin Kung-Fu, and quite well at that.
  • China from Axis Powers Hetalia, and specially in the anime. He uses his beloved wok to cook delicious dishes and to kick ass.
  • In Mahoromatic Mahoro is this. One of the side characters, Chizuko, seems to be there mainly to identify the exact dish from the precise 5* restaurant, which Mahoro has just replicated to perfection.

Comic Books

  • Deadpool: A girl from Deadpool's past calls this trope by name: "In the Heya kitchen, they call me... the Iron Chef!"


Film

  • Steven Seagal in his classic Under Siege... when terrorists hijack a navy battleship, they secure the entire, battle-hardened crew... but they forget the ship cook. Who is a former Navy SEAL. Played by Steven Seagal, of all people. Yeah, they're pretty much fucked.

Jordan Tate: You're not a cook.
Casey Ryback: Yeah, well... I also cook.

    • In the sequel, there is a scene where Seagal's character sends a message to his co-worker, another chef. And everyone expected serious kickassery... But it turned out he wanted the other chef just to call the Mission Control.
  • Four guys in a Chinese kitchen in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story rather suddenly become examples of this trope.
  • Sammo Hung, another martial arts film star, has a movie called Kung Fu Chef. Guess what it's about.
  • The chef in Dragon Inn (another Martial Arts movie) is equally deadly with his meat cleaver in the kitchen and on the battlefield.
  • The 1996 film The Long Kiss Goodnight has Geena Davis as an assassin who's lost her memory, living now as a suburban housewife. Her memories start to reemerge when she's in the kitchen. "Chefs do that," she says when she does a little flourish with her knife after chopping vegetables. A little later, when she kills some intruders with the same knife, she repeats the line. "Chefs do that."
  • The 1997 Jackie Chan movie Mr Nice Guy stars Jackie as a TV chef. (In fact, in Spain the movie was titled Super Chef.) Since it's Jackie Chan, he obviously also kicks a lot of ass.
  • If Colette is to be believed, most of the chefs in Gusteau's kitchen in Ratatouille are some form of this. The most amusing one is the sous chef who was in prison and tells a different story of his crime every time someone asks, including "I killed a man. With this thumb."
  • In the Stephen Chow film God of Cookery, the world famous chef and title-holder is disgraced by an underling. He picks up a knife and is disarmed with a teaspoon by the underling who claims that the title-holder has not cooked for so long his grip has grown weak. The disgraced cook then embarks on a journey to become a Chef Of Iron once more.
    • A better example of a Chef of Iron from that film is Sister Turkey. In a fight she punches through an upturned table to hold a meat cleaver right in front of the face of the man behind it. By day she sells fast food.
  • Let's not forget Hanzo Hattori from Kill Bill, people! After retiring from his blacksmith duties, he became a sushi chef in Okinawa. And then he came out of retirement to forge The Bride's iconic katana.
  • Po from Kung Fu Panda was raised by a noodle chef, prior to being chosen to be trained as a kick ass warrior. As a result, he knows a little something about cooking, and while it's not played up, he's definitely good at it. Once he receives his kick ass martial training, he's a classic type 1.
  • The Champion of Justice in Fish Story is an excellent example. He leaves the scene to get an apple pie out of the oven, and returns to find a hijacking in progress. They shoot him, but it doesn't stop him at first[1]
  • Beck (played by Dwayne Johnson) in The Rundown.


Literature

  • In Robin McKinley's Sunshine, Sunshine, a baker, falls into the first category of Chef of Iron, using magic and (you guessed it) the power of sunshine to duke it out with various vampires threatening to kill her.
  • Tamora Pierce's Trickster series has Chenaol, who is a superb cook (at least once the protagonist (who grew up in the western-Europe-fantasy-counterpart-culture) gets used to the southern-Asia-fantasy-counterpart-culture's cuisine) is also one of the four leaders and the armorer of the rebel group and apparently is very effective with a meat cleaver in hand-to-hand combat.
  • For Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, Vorhopolous and his 1000 chefs spring to mind. He hired mercenaries as "cooks" and equipped them with butcher knives instead of swords, and the like, to follow the word of a law limiting the size of his army.
    • Naturally, his penalty for breaking the law was to be placed in stocks and die of starvation. Let it never be said that the emperor at the time didn't have a sense of humour.
  • Robert Heinlein's Between Planets. Charlie is a Chinese immigrant to the planet Venus. Not only is he an excellent cook, he knows how to handle a butcher knife and dies fighting against an invasion of the planet.
  • Fritz from Nero Wolfe is a very early example of this trope.
  • Farqual from The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.
  • Vlad Taltos in the Dragaera series is a professional assassin and amateur cook (and gourmand). His father owned a restaurant, which he inherited and ran briefly before joining the equivalent of the Mafia.
  • Polgara the Sorceress from David Eddings' Belgariad. She can turn you into a turnip and then fix you the best dinner ever (but not necessarily in that order).
  • In The Hero from Otherwhere by Jay Williams, a legendary swordsman is beaten by a cook wielding a ladle and a cauldron lid. The cook is the real legendary swordsman and the other an impostor.
  • Harry Kressing's novel The Cook features the mysterious Conrad, who is able to manipulate and control people through his cooking, while using his superlative knife skills in combat with rivals.
  • Escrima in the Phule's Company novels.
  • Rae from Sunshine, especially when faced with vampires near her kitchen. She'll drop them with a table knife.


Live Action TV

  • Eliot from Leverage. In "The Wedding Job", he demonstrates that he's eerily schooled in the differences in proper knife-holding techniques for different tasks, causing Nathan to become visibly disturbed.

Eliot:"Hold a knife this way, dice an onion. Hold a knife this way, slice through eight Yakuza in four seconds..."

    • That same episode has Eliot dispatching a thug The Butcher of Kiev by shoving a pair of hors d'oeuvres in his eyes that he squirted lemon juice on.

Nathan: "Did you just kill a man with an appetizer?"
Eliot: "I dunno...maybe..."

    • This is set up as early as episode 2 ("The Homecoming Job"), in which he assembles a pile of phonemes into a convincingly French name for the hors d'oeuvre he's holding.
      • Almost, he managed to get all of them except the phonemes for "F," "U," and "K." Although, he deliberately annoys the guy he's trying to record them from, who then puts them together for him (really loudly.)
  • The Chairman of Iron Chef America, played by Mark Dacascos, is a black belt (both in character and in Real Life), and isn't shy about showing moves off in Kitchen Stadium. While it's not explicitly said that he cooks himself, he's a gourmand, and given the trope's namesake, he ought to count.
    • The original Iron Chef has at least two of these as challengers. One a former Sumo turned chef after a knee injury forced him to quit and another who was a professional chef who also competed at the national level in some form of martial arts.
  • Tenkasei Ryou from Gosei Sentai Dairanger is a gyoza cook and the most powerful warrior in the team. When he returned in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, he still retains both his amazing fighting and cooking skill and can fight the Zangyack even untransformed.
  • Speaking of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, cooking duties on the GokaiGalleon are shared between GokaiGreen Doc and GokaiSilver Gai. Each have kicked more than their fair share of ass during the show. Even the teams Lancer Joe was seen baking a cake once.
  • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger has Shinken Gold, a sushi chef and fighter. The sushi chef theme extends to his Transformation Trinket, weapon, fighting style and robots. All this, and he makes a mean curry rice.
    • This extends to his American counterpart, Antonio of Power Rangers Samurai. Pink ranger Mia aspires to be this, but her cooking leaves something to be desired.
  • Shouichi Tsugami of Kamen Rider Agito.
  • Souji Tendou of Kamen Rider Kabuto.
  • Michael Garibaldi, the Babylon 5 chief of security, is also a near gourmet-level chef (specializing in Italian food), which poses two problems for him: 1. Being security chief on a Space Station tens of light-years from the nearest proper farm, getting certain ingredients (like fresh eggs and butter) is nigh-impossible, and 2. Dr. Franklin doesn't approve of heavy foods. Most of his time is spent being suspicious and kicking ass, so the cooking dimension serves to make him more three-dimensional.
  • Piper Halliwell. Chef-turned-club owner by day, powerful witch by night. Her cooking abilities make it easier for her to brew potions, which can be used to kill demons.
    • In the end, after she retires from being a witch, Piper buys a restaurant.
  • Captain Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine, exquisite chef who grew up working in his dad's restaurant. And one of the most Badass beings in the alpha quadrant.
  • The Swedish Chef isn't so much a chef who can fight so much as a chef who cooks with weapons. Unfortunately for him, the food he prepares tends to fight back.
  • Reaper contains a demon couple who, among other things, is shown to be excellent cooks. They're not big on the fighting side; but, being demons, they can seriously kick ass when they need to.

Tabletop Games

  • Ogre Butchers from Warhammer Fantasy Battle, who use a specialized Lore known as "Gut Magic".
    • Halflings also qualify. As well as being excellent cooks they are known to be talented thieves and capable archers. In addition to serving as skirmishers on the battlefield they also employ the Halfling Hot Pot, an artillery piece consisting of a giant slingshot used to hurl pots of scalding hot soup at the enemy.
    • More specifically, there's the Fighting Cooks, a mercenary squadron of HobbitsHalflings who are highly-skilled as trackers, hunters, and ambushers - and quite capable of going head-to-head too. More importantly, they improve the morale of the entire army with their delicious cooking!
  • Dungeons and Dragons
    • Many settings hold a notion that to buy or found a tavern or inn is one of best investment available for retired adventurers who didn't make it to the high rung or don't like politics.
    • There was a 1st level downloadable adventure for D&D 3rd edition where the final boss was a Calzone Golem!
  • The Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue from Changeling: The Lost probably qualify. The Knights are always on the search for new flavors, particularly those of Goblin Fruits and Hedge Beasts. Which means they need to be fit to walk into, and survive, the Hedge.
  • Pete, The Chef : From an unnamed sci-fi survival board game distributed in an issue of In Quest. Given the lack of depth to this, this trope is all there is to this character.


Theatre

  • Mason from Journey's End, chef to a British reigment and Deadpan Snarker who must also fight.
  • Cyrano De Bergerac: Baker Ragueneau is a realistic example of this trope at Act IV: He is a supreme chef who is capable of cooking enough food for a regiment and then he cleverly disguises in a carriage (and to occult the smell!) to smuggle it through enemy lines for the French troops (he is the coachman and goes through various Spanish checkpoints). He is risking his life for his friends, the cadets.


Video Games

  • In the first Hitman game, you get attacked by one of the chefs wielding a meat cleaver.
  • Chrono Cross has Orcha, cursed to also become an Evil Chef sometimes.
  • The Suikoden series has several, but the most notable one is no doubt Hai Yo from Suikoden II. Quite possibly the finest chef in the world, and a master of the Cooking Duel, he is also available as a combat unit, with decent stats, and an interesting fighting-style. Wields kitchen-implements.
  • Regal from Tales of Symphonia is a fighter who cooks well.
  • Jam Kuradoberi from Guilty Gear: master chef who dreams of opening a restaurant as well as fighting ki master.
  • Street Fighter IV has El Fuerte, a Masked Luchador cook who enters the tournament to find new recipe ideas.
  • Marshall Law from Tekken. He's even called "the fighting chef".
  • Elzam von Branstein of Super Robot Wars. Gourmet chef with a Badass Super Robot and unstoppable theme song. Real Men Ride Each Other.
  • From Final Fantasy IX, we have Quina, who is also an Extreme Omnivore, wielding an oversized set of cutlery in combat, along with his/her chef-hat. It's never clarified if Quina's cooking is edible by humans.
    • It is - see the scene with Quina and Eiko in Madain Sari, wherein Quina demonstrates expertise on human food preparation techniques.
      • Heck, he/she was a chef in Castle Alexandria, if you visited the kitchen.
  • Henpecked Hou from Jade Empire. Although he's sworn off fighting due to his wife, he was once a master of the Drunken Master kung-fu style, and can teach it to the player.
  • Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: Absence of Justice has Mr. Champloo. He's a Demonic Cooking Teacher Martial Artist! Boom!
    • Keep in mind, this isn't new for Nippon Ichi; the class of Makai Chef already existed in Makai Kingdom, which is one of the few classes that can master the frying pan and pie weapon types.
  • In Kingdom of Loathing, Saucerors and Pastamancers fit the Type 3 description to a T; Saucerors conjure various hot/cold/spicy sauce spells to hurt the monsters and can craft potions by cooking them; Pastamancers have spells such as "Entangling Noodles" and can summon pasta golems. Both classes also acquire skills that let them cook high-quality food items.
    • There are also enemies that fit the bill - Degrassi Knoll and the Gnollish War Chef, the Assistant Chefs in Cobb's Knob each have chefs, the Spookyraven Manor has zombie chefs and at the higher levels during the war between the hippies and the frat boys each side has the Baker Company (think herbal brownies) and the Grill Seargents respectively. (The later two, you might expect, kick considerably more ass, especially the Elite Mook versions.)
  • Clay Fighter 63 1/3 has Kung Pow, a Chinese chef who attacks with woks, chopsticks, knives, and other cooking utensils. All his moves are named after Chinese dishes.
  • One level in Medal of Honor: Frontline takes place on a U-Boat, with the player fighting his way past the entire crew. The level route goes through the galley, where the U-Boat's cook will attack by throwing knives. He goes down easy, though. These chefs also appear in later levels and games, I think.
  • Gordo from Skies of Arcadia: you first meet the man when he attacks your ship intending on looting it's kitchen, he is one of the most feared pirates in the northern skies and owns a bistro you have to visit in the game. For the most part Gordo and his crew qualify as type 2, using kitchen knives as weapons and dressed up as chefs, one of Gordo's specials however ranks him up to type three.
  • Kirby can eat a fighting cook enemy to gain the ability to cook his foes. Kirby can also use this ability in Brawl as his Final Smash.
  • One of Mr. Game & Watch's attacks in Super Smash Bros. has him pull out a frying pan and fling out food that harms opponents.
  • The main character of a Playstation 1 (originally 3DO) shooter called PO'ed is a chef IN SPACE!! whose ship crash lands on an alien planet; he has to fight his way out with whatever he's got, including kitchen implements.
  • Power Stone has two battling chefs, Wangtang and Gourmand.
  • Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard gives us the Master Chef, who goes into battle wearing futuristic armor that includes a big metal chef's hat, and a potholder on one hand.
  • From Team FK Digital's Chaos Code, there's Bravo Pepperonicine.
  • Iksel from Atelier Rorona is pretty laid-back when working at the Sunrise Cafe, but wields a mean frying pan in battle.
  • Emiya Shirou from Fate/stay night was the Supreme Chef before beginning to master his combat abilities, becoming a Type 1. By extension, this makes Archer one as well.
    • Tohsaka Rin qualifies, being a proficient magus/hand-to-hand combatant and cook of roughly equivalent skill.
  • One of the Psychopaths in Dead Rising 2 is Antoine, an Evil Chef who decides to serve Chuck as his next masterpiece of cuisine.
  • Indie game The Dishwasher has The Chef. He serves as something halfway between The Obi-Wan and a Guardian Angel to the Dishwasher himself, appropriately enough. Oh, and he also messily wipes the floor with dozens of government-trained, heavily armed cyborgs and survives his Obi-Wan Moment of being chainsawed in half from the shoulder to the hip.
  • "Captain" Cookie, in World of Warcraft's revamped Deadmines dungeon.
    • Every character with the Cooking skill, seeing as gaining ingredients for recipes means hunting Beasts and Critters for the Organ Drops.
  • In "Fallout: New Vegas", in one of the casinos there is a chef who you can openly provoke into attacking you.
    • The sad part is, I personally wouldn't know how well he fights because I had recently gotten a unique pistol that allowed me to finish him before he had finished pulling out his pistol.
      • as well as everybody else in a 1 yard area of me.
  • Your player character in the Rune Factory games can become this, optionally. Put enough effort in, and you can create dishes that will wow even the local gourmand or Supreme Chef. Rune Factory 3 even allows you to craft utensils for use in battle.
  • It's easy to forget that, while Milfeulle Sakuraba is a very cheerful Supreme Chef, her day job is piloting a manned weapon of mass-destruction that sports a BFG. You do not want to cross her. Ever.
  • Overlapping with Evil Chef, many mooks in the Luncheon Kingdom from Super Mario Odyssey, including Goombahs wearing chef's hats, and the bird-like boss, Cookatiel.
    • Mario himself, if the player buys the Chef outfit.

Web Comics

  • Sluggy Freelance did the parody story of "Muffin the Vampire Baker", complete with armaments such as a portable oven. Of course, Sam has some things to show them about more effective (and traditional) ways to deal with said vampires...
  • Ronin Galaxy: Giancarlo can hold his own in a gunfight and still manage to cook up a full-course meal for breakfast the next morning.
  • Type 3 is very important in Triangle and Robert, where several of the characters are "Cuisine Mages" who can cast awesomely powerful spells derived from cooking.
  • Girl Genius got Countess [2] Marie - minor Mad Scientist (Chemist) who ran off to join the circus and is always ready to disprove the notion of her being a fragile sheltered noblewoman... using a Frying Pan of Doom.
  • Belkar from Order of the Stick is a minor example of Type 1. As well as being a skilled knife fighter, he also has 4 ranks in Profession (gourmet chef). He makes a vulture stew for the MitD, and when a bounty hunter threatens to feed Roy's heart to one of his associates, he suggests cooking it with garlic to bring out the flavor.
    • "Hey, I'm trying here! I have exactly two skill sets, and you get mad when I use the other one!"
  • Played with in Dubious Company, when Tiren decides to bake chocolate:

Everyone: SHE can cook?
Fumiko: Duh!

    • Later:

Fumiko: I thought you said she remade the chocolate?
Sal: She must have. It's more hideous than before.


Web Original

  • Most of the cooks in Banana-nana-Ninja!: Feast Master, especially Baninja and the Feast Master Champion, certainly qualify. Especially when the Champion goes One-Winged Angel and becomes a Humongous Mecha wielding giant cooking utensils as weapons.
    • Also, the Sumo Baker from Banana Shop of Horrors is a Type 3 who fires magic muffins.
  • In Darwin's Soldiers, Dean Nixon joins in the chase through Las Vegas in the second RP. He is the Pelvanida chef.
  • Heinrich, the anthropomorphic bear chef from Ursula Vernon's Book of the Gear. Do not mess with his truffle oil if you want to live.


Western Animation


Real Life

  • Chef Harold Hillard was awarded three bronze stars, a silver star, and earned himself three purple hearts during his service as a US Marine (in both the Korean and Vietnam wars). After he retired from active duty, he became a chef. He now trains chefs at Kaiser University's Tallahassee, Florida campus. Specifically, he teaches meat cutting and knife skills (one of his students in the fine art of rendering meat from whole pieces to small bleeding chunks was, in fact, the same Robert Irvine who will be appearing in the next example). The man's almost 80 years old, and can debone an entire pig in less than 20 minutes. Don't mess with him.
  • Robert Irvine, MCFA (C.G.) of the Food Network's Dinner: Impossible. He's a Royal Navy veteran. On top of it all, he's buffed and cut enough to look like he could kick your ass with ease.
  • Doris Miller was in Pearl Harbor assigned as a Cook Third Class on the USS West Virginia on Dec. 7, 1941. When the Japanese attack started, his battle station at an antiaircraft battery had already been destroyed, so he went on deck and manned a 50 caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun (which he hadn't been trained to use) for 15 minutes until he ran out of ammunition. He was awarded a Navy Cross from Admiral Nimitz. He was also the ship's heavyweight boxing champion.
  1. ↑ and not later, either.
  2. ↑ a "third cousin...many times removed, of course" of Her Undying Majesty
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