For various reasons I see no reason to expand upon, I was thinking about this today and thought it might make for an interesting thread.
So we are clear, I am only interested in characters who are NOT professional chefs but whose culinary acumen is nonetheless a frequent story point. So no character who cooks for a living is eligible.
The first character who comes to mind is Robert B Parker’s Spenser. He is the reason I used the word “cook” rather than “chef” in the subject line, by the way, as he notes in an early novel that his cooking is really on the level of a skilled housewife and says that calling him a gourmet chef is sexist.
Speaking of Spenser brings to mind Avery Brooks, who played Hawk in the TV series. While that character could not cook, Brooks’s starring role in Star Trek: DS9 , Captain Sisko, was easily as good or better a cook as the aforementioned detective. (Incidentally, Sisko’s father does not qualify for this thread, as he was an actual professional chef.)
I can’t recall any of the original Holmes stories in which cooking is ever mentioned. And I have read them all. Do you perhaps mean a pastiche done by a later writer or on film/TV?
in fact her cooking was figured in the murder of the week …
the first sheriff had a sister who was married to an ass who was always high…she took off. showed up in Maine with hubby and family following ….
well after some rigamarole Jessica throws a diner party and the hubbys half brother poisioned the seafood stew she made and killed him with an over dose
and since she was a noted cook in town people were shocked …
Reese in Malcolm in the Middle was a savant level cook and it often figured into the plot.
The Australian show Please Like Me had a dish as the title of almost every episode and the characters within were quite serious cooks and it was integrated quite organically into their character motivations.
Almost every character in Brian Jacques Redwall series who wasn’t a talented professional cook was a talented amateur cook (except the baddies which is how you knew they were bad!).
Lars Barriga of Steven Universe is a very good cook, and baker…something he wants none of the other characters to know, because he’s afraid the Cool Kids won’t take him seriously if they know he can cook.
(He worked in a donut shop, but until shortly before his situation changed, they weren’t allowed to cook the donuts, due to an accident the donut cook had…)
I can confirm that you are right, because I was just watching an episode last night (I have the DVDs) where he made chilli which seemed to be pretty hot and then he put more spice in it.
The Eternal Emperor in the Sten series is a very good cook, and likes to cook various ancient & exotic (to them) meals for people he’s discussing issues with. He does so several times with the protagonist of the series.
His original motivation was pretty straightforward; he’s thousands of years old and wanted the food he grew up eating.