# Cooks who Kill! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 15, 2015, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350 "2015-09-15T13:00:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/21 "2015-09-15T16:18:15Z")
Law and Order Criminal Intent episode “Death Roe”. Not only is the chef the killer, he has an incestuous relationship with his daughter, and ground up his victim and fed him to the employees. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/22 "2015-09-15T16:22:31Z")
Which reminds me that there was an _L&O_ episode where a TV chef kills to try to keep his show from being canceled. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/23 "2015-09-15T16:22:53Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > If Mrs. Lovett counts, then you would have to include Richard Boarst, the cook in _The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover_ as an accessory to murder. > > Maybe you want a subcategory of cooks who cook people, even if they didn’t murder them themselves? I’m getting the idea that “cooks who cook people” is actually the more popular option! I considered that, but I thought it was too narrow - I guess I was wrong … maybe I’ll make the ‘project’ all cooks who cooked up people. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/24 "2015-09-15T16:25:07Z")
Oooh, and _The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover_, where the Lover, IIRC, is baked and force-fed by the Wife to the Cook. Yeah, jolly film. Damn, ninja’d, though I’m not sure who did the cooking. But I do recall that the wife made her husband eat some. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/25 "2015-09-15T16:32:51Z")
Mr Monk and the Foreign Man. Restaurant owner (who probably was a cook to start, if that’s not a stretch) kills someone while drunk driving and then murders a witness. Also, the film _Delicatessen_. Mmm, cannibalism! Though it was post-apocalyptic, maybe that’s excusable. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/26 "2015-09-15T16:35:24Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Which reminds me that there was an _L&O_ episode where a TV chef kills to try to keep his show from being canceled. Criminal Intent again - Salome in Manhattan. But I think it was the business partner (Shawn Hatosy, creepy as always) than was the murderer. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/27 "2015-09-15T16:44:20Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Oooh, and _The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover_, where the Lover, IIRC, is baked and force-fed by the Wife to the Cook. > > Yeah, jolly film. > > Damn, ninja’d, though I’m not sure who did the cooking. But I do recall that the wife made her husband eat some. The Wife fed her Lover, who was cooked by the Cook, to her husband, the Thief, who had killed the Lover. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/28 "2015-09-15T16:58:09Z")
The Brewster Sisters in **Arsenic and Old Lace** often cooked a meal for their victims before giving them the poisoned wine. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/29 "2015-09-15T17:13:19Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > … maybe I’ll make the ‘project’ all cooks who cooked up people. 😃 The great Stanley Ellin’s great short story “The Specialty of the House” was made into a fifth-season episode of _Alfred Hitchcock Presents_, featuring the great Robert Morley. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/30 "2015-09-15T17:15:47Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Samantha Caine/Charly Baltimore: Chefs do that! I thought of Charly when I read the title but decided she really didn’t count as, even though she had crazy knife skills, she wasn’t a chef at all. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/31 "2015-09-15T17:22:26Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > The great Stanley Ellin’s great short story “The Specialty of the House” was made into a fifth-season episode of _Alfred Hitchcock Presents_, featuring the great Robert Morley. Mentioned above in #8, although evidently I got the title and author wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/32 "2015-09-15T18:16:37Z")
Do restaurant owners count? If so, Eduardo/El Macho in\*\* Despicable Me 2\*\*. (I’m not sure if he actually killed anybody, but he sure tried.) ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/33 "2015-09-15T18:22:58Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Mentioned above in #8, although evidently I got the title and author wrong. No, you were right. “Lamb to the Slaughter” is an iconic Roald Dahl story involving cook-murder, although the cook is a housewife. One of the best AH episodes. “The Specialty of the House” came later. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/34 "2015-09-15T18:27:57Z")
One of the finest Nero Wolfe mystery novels by Rex Stout is 1939’s TOO MANY COOKS. A famous chef is murdered by another famous chef at a famous chef contest. No human flesh is consumed, though. Wolfe would have said “Pfui” to that. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/35 "2015-09-15T18:58:40Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Typhoid Mary? Thought of her too. Real life example, though, whereas the OP just called for fictional portrayals. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/36 "2015-09-15T20:09:32Z")
Typhoid Mary never murdered anyone (except through idiocy). In The Long Kiss Goodnight, the main character displays knife skills in the kitchen that are clearly a chef’s knife skills. While the director probably intended to show, simply, that she was good with a knife, there’s not much similarity between knife fighting and dicing an onion. So, from what we see, we must assume that she had spent some good hours working in a kitchen. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/37 "2015-09-15T20:32:18Z")
The cook kills the narrator’s mother in **Life of Pi** (embodied by the jackal and orangutan, respectively). Recent Foreign language Oscar-nominee **Wild Tales** features a story about a restaurant cook who kills in an act of revenge. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/38 "2015-09-15T20:38:10Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Typhoid Mary never murdered anyone (except through idiocy). > > In The Long Kiss Goodnight, the main character displays knife skills in the kitchen that are clearly a chef’s knife skills. While the director probably intended to show, simply, that she was good with a knife, there’s not much similarity between knife fighting and dicing an onion. So, from what we see, we must assume that she had spent some good hours working in a kitchen. We should continue evaluating Charley’s skill as this is one of my favorite movies ever and the more we speak of it, the better. I agree that her ability to dice onions and peppers has nothing to do with her ability to creatively kill with a butcher knife. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/39 "2015-09-15T21:06:49Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > We should continue evaluating Charley’s skill as this is one of my favorite movies ever and the more we speak of it, the better. I agree that her ability to dice onions and peppers has nothing to do with her ability to creatively kill with a butcher knife. Well she also cusses like someone who worked in a kitchen. 🙂 I could probably pull up a few more bits of evidence, but I’d have to watch the movie again… Welp, I guess I know what I’m doing tonight. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2015, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350/40 "2015-09-15T21:53:25Z")
…Eliot Spencer from Leverage. And his most bad-ass moment (gloriously over-the-top) (Spoilers for Season 3) [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OvaSrikG6Q) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cooks-who-kill/731350.md?page=3)