Plastic Chef Neelix

Get out of the kitchen......NOW!

"What kind of cook thinks that increased heat equals less cooking time? A bad one!"

—Chuck Sonnenburg

This page is dedicated to the general cooking fail that is Neelix, a judgement that even the characters of the show agree on. When asked her opinion on some of Neelix's cooking, Seven-Of-Nine responded, "It is offensive." Tom Paris calls his spaghetti "hair pasta." Even Janeway complains about the nastiness of his "coffee substitute." In fact, she ends up running from it scared!

"Of course it might not meet your personal culinary standards."
"Don't worry, I've learned to lower my standards since you became cook."

—Neelix and Tom Paris

Neelix does not respect the tastes of others

Leola Root. Neelix's favorite ingredient. You will eat this and like it! I am the Lord of Food!

"I think you have to be careful with spices. Kids' palates can be very delicate, and they might not like things overspiced. In my cookbooks for kids, I do a milder version of my signature spice blend, Emeril's Essence, called Baby Bam, which has no cayenne pepper."

—Emeril Lagasse

Many good chefs are known to tinker with recipes in order to improve upon them or to overcome a missing ingredient that isn't available. Neelix does not do this well, and in fact he finds ways to force his own versions of dishes on those he is serving, even when every part of the original recipe is available. He seems to think that no matter what he is told, his special additions are always an "improvement," and he is flummoxed at the very idea that someone could dislike his new version of the dish. Even the names of his dishes reflect this attitude; the best example of this is his "Even Better Than Coffee Coffee Substitute," as the name itself implies that if you don't like it, there must be something wrong with you. This is ignoring that the substance (I don't dare call it a drink) resembles thick roofing tar. When a Vulcan can't eat your version of his favorite dish without making a face of disgust, you really know you are doing something wrong!

"Janeway: (after escapin' Neelix's 'Even Better Than Coffee Coffee Substitute') Yes, Commander?
Chakotay: There was no need for you to come to the bridge, Captain.
Janeway: Yes, there was."

—Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay

This includes the addition of spices that he is constantly told that the patrons can't stand. The ingredient in question is a rhizome called "Leola root." Neelix adds it to everything, sweet or savory. He claims that the root is extremely nutritious, but since it is used like ginger (I know about Ginger's documented medicinal benefits but that's isn't how Neelix sells the item's value, and none of those benefits he claims are ever verified), his claims on the matter are very suspect. Leola root is so despised that the only time anyone even considers voluntarily eating it is when the two of them (Tom Paris and Harry Kim) are starving in an alien prison!

He goes so far as to insist that when food is smuggled out of his kitchen because someone wanted to make a dish their way rather than his, some type of punishment is required. He does this even though any authority on the matter is self-imposed in the first place (at least Chakotay doesn't gratify him by actually enforcing it). It's understandable on a minor level that he would try to convince people that using locally available supplies is a worthwhile effort, but if something does not please the pallet of a patron (let alone your entire clientele), you shouldn't force it onto them. No, this is not the same as convincing children to eat their vegetables, as the items he insists on adding are only flavor enhancers, not items of any real nutritional value. The impression is that if someone was allergic to something, he'd still put it in their food and make them eat it anyway.

Neelix refuses to allow competition

No you can't have coffee, Captain! I demand you drink this instead! What is this, your diarrhea? Nothing in the kitchen should ever look like this stuff!

"Shouldn't you be rolling tanks into a Wendy's right about now?"

—Chuck Sonnenburg

Neelix reigns over his domain as cook on Voyager with an absolutely tyrannical grip (Chuck calls it "Coffee Martial Law"). He refuses to provide food when it doesn't suit him to do so, with no justification other than a bemused shrug. As seen above, he has an absolute fit when food supplies are used in any way other then his "approved" usage of them. His complete control of the diet of his clientele even reaches the level of telling Captain Janeway herself (Full of yourself much?) that she can't use one of her own replicator rations to have some coffee instead of his substitute (I've never seen anything look as nasty as that stuff!), because it would look bad to the rest of the crew for her to do so. Keep in mind that this is only the sixth episode (counting both parts of the pilot) meaning he has barely even been on the ship at this point (and one episode since he formally opened his mess hall). This does beg the question of how honest Neelix is being with his energy consumption (see below). It is interesting to note that Janeway does not have any problems replicating coffee when she wants it, other the the replicator failing to do it right, for the rest of the series.

In a multitude of instances, he more-or-less demands that no one can use anything food-related without his permission, including the use of replicator rations, which are supposed to be free to use for whatever the crewman wants and can even be saved up. The rations are basically money, so what right does he have to tell anyone how they use them? This demand lead to the situation where, instead of replicating normal cheese (which would have been good enough) in order to satisfy a crewmember's craving for macaroni and cheese, he made his own cheese and almost destroyed the ship with it.

So satisfying!

His insecurity even goes to the point that when any food is seen in his kitchen that he didn't produce, he goes into an absolute tirade over it. The things he pontificates about are very telling, indicating a concern that Janeway could possibly be considering replacing him with someone else. Of course, the only satisfying part of this behavior is that it does result in a powerful being removing his mouth.

Neelix always cooks his food on high

Flames are cool, right?

Janeway can only facepalm....

"Use your knob!"

—Emeril Lagasse

It's somewhat understandable in the context of filming something cooking on screen to use an obviously visible flame, but what we see Neelix doing goes well beyond that. In every cooking operation we see Neelix doing, he is always doing so with the flames so high that fire licks up to sometimes half the height of the sides of the stock pot he is using. This helps explain why we see Neelix overcooking or even outright burning food on multiple occasions. Of course when this happens it is never his fault as he always claims some other issue is involved (even though not tending the food properly is usually the real reason). Any good cook will tell you that those kinds of heat levels are only useful in a very narrow number of applications: wok based cooking is a good example.

Ignoring that, such high flame represents a massive waste of resources. We are constantly being told that power reserves are precious, but we then see Neelix overusing energy to cook the food that is suppose to be helping. No matter how the technobabble is explained to us, it doesn't change the fact that energy is being used very inefficiently to do tasks where not even close to those levels are required. If what Neelix is doing is still conserving energy, then replicators must be horrendously inefficient (or one more piece of evidence of his dishonesty and culinary tyranny, see above).

Neelix thinks that higher temperatures equals faster cooking times.

It just doesn't work....

"I think many cooks are afraid of undercooked meats. A good thermometer is a cook's best friend."

—Emeril Lagasse

This section is partially related to the previous point, but it showcases a different cooking-related issue. In the episode "Flashback", a technobabble material in a nebula is discovered that Neelix says they could inject into his cooking array, allowing him to cook meals in half the time. Because of the level of techno gibberish in this scene, it isn't immediately obvious what assumption Neelix is making.

To make it clear, he expects doubling the combustion rate of his burner to half the time his cooking will take to finish. This leads into something that is often called "Oven Logic", which is a mistake made by many amateur cooks. Doubling the power of your burner does not half the cooking time (or any other linear expectation) because of the complex chemical interactions that take place whenever you cook anything. In actual fact, this will result in what is called "searing," a technique commonly used by chefs to improve the appearance or flavor of food prior to finishing it with some other method (such as in an oven or a pressure cooker), but one which with very few exceptions (grilling comes to mind — but even there you do use weaker coals to finish the food) cannot be used as the sole method of cooking, as it will either leave the middle of the food undercooked or the outside severely burnt.

Neelix lacks even basic sauce making skills.

"If kids can learn how to make a simple Bolognese sauce, they will never go hungry. It's pretty easy to cook pasta, but a good sauce is way more useful."

—Emeril Lagasse

Neelix is seen in the episode "Learning Curve" to be making macaroni and cheese, where his solution for making a cheese-based sauce is to take a chunk of solid cheese and just toss it into a pot filled with macaroni and leave it at that. While with some soft young cheeses[1][2] this is possible (and with certain blue boxed mixes — but that's butter and cheating), even with those kinds of cheeses, an experienced cook will melt the cheese into a separate saucepan, integrate it into a sauce, and then add that to the pasta. Also, this is another place where his inability to ever turn down his burners will generally spell disaster, as the pasta will be very over cooked before the cheese will become anything close to a stable sauce.

His high burners also mean that when he is making a large amount of a spaghetti-type sauce, he is required to tend the pot that the sauce is cooking in constantly in order to prevent it from burning. This is something that does not tend to produce a tomato sauce that will have much of anything that could be called good flavor or texture. It is not something he even actually does, as he constantly leaves pots unattended with massive flames running under them in order to talk to patrons (or a camera). This may be the reason Tom Paris expressed annoyance at the quality of his spaghetti.

Neelix does not seem to understand basic food safety principles

Keep in mind the outside container was added by Tuvok. The one Neelix was using is inside the box.

"Cleanliness is very important. If you let kids make a total mess in the kitchen and then leave, you're not really teaching them anything."

—Emeril Lagasse

Once again we are forced to look to the disaster that was "Learning Curve". Neelix has made a batch of homemade cheese, and he is storing this cheese in a bell-jar-like container on the counter in his kitchen. If there are any doubts about where he was storing the cheese, keep in mind that the reason he managed to infect the ship with the cheese at all was that the jar was sitting under a ventilation duct. While there are a few cheeses that can be stored in a room temperature state without much worry (none of which Neelix had the resources to make), most experienced cooks will still store them in a refrigerated environment, as that is just one extra precaution against food poisoning. The danger-zone is a very real concern, and — as evidenced by Neelix managing to infect the ship itself with his cheese — just begs the bigger question of how many food poisoning cases was the Doctor dealing with that they just didn't care to show us. The Doctor's own comments once he scanned the cheese just add to that sort of speculation!

"This is the most pernicious agent of infection I've ever seen!"

—the Doctor

Neelix's solution for cleaning greens for use in a salad was to shake them off and set them on the counter. He does complain about the bugs found on those greens but does nothing to get rid of them other then gripe about it. On another occasion, we find out that an ingredient being used in Neelix's kitchen is once again the cause of a technical issue with the systems of Voyager. This time, technobabble "fleas" are found in a new spice that Neelix is using (in everything, as usual — learn a new trick Scheissekopf). This time we see that there is at least one crewman who has gotten sick from this new ingredient.

During the events of the episode, "Message in a Bottle", while the Doctor is onboard the USS Prometheus, we find Tom Paris (as a the part of the episode set back on Voyager) being forced to deal with constant cases of patients from Neelix's mess hall complaining of "heartburn." While other instances of possible food poisoning seen on the show involving Neelix's cooking are more ambiguous, this is the only time when the connection to Neelix's cooking is completely obvious. To make matters worse, despite the ever-increasing number of "customers" made ill by the dish that he was serving, Neelix refuses to stop serving it to the crew.

Neelix's kitchen is a safety nightmare

How am I suppose to stir the bottom of this pot?

Neelix thinks well-designed burners count as counter-space.

Doing it right!

"I try to teach my son about sanitation, especially when handling foods like chicken that could be dangerous. I remind him to wash his hands all the time. When my son cooks with me, he stands on a step stool so he can reach the stove. I teach him about safety and fire."

—Emeril Lagasse

There is no specific example to cite for this one, as it is visible everywhere in Neelix's kitchen. It is an ergonomic and safety nightmare. He leaves kitchen utensils, including sharp ones, lying about in unsafe positions, but the most blatant example of this problem is visible in his burner setup. Neelix's burners are positioned so high that, while he is operating the stove, the tops of the pots are at almost the level of his neck or chin. This is very unsafe and an absolute ergonomic nightmare. Burns in the kitchen are a very serious matter, and having pots (and burners) filled with hot liquids at that height is asking to have them tipped over onto someone. This is even more egregious, considering that he is operating his kitchen on a spaceship that might swerve or bounce about at any moment.

What makes matters worse is the fact that he never seems to turn his burners off, even when he's out of the kitchen. He walks up to the burners and they just always seem to be on. We are only shown him turning them off when he required to put out a fire when food he is cooking bursts into flames.

Barring that, watch him try to cook in those pots and the absolutely awkward ways he must hold the utensils to stir anything in them to realize the other reason those positions are moronic. Stew pots should always be lower then chest level; it just makes everything much simpler to manage. In point of fact, this is why many industrial burners designed for use with high-capacity stockpots actually have stove-tops sometime a half foot lower then normal commercial ranges.

Neelix does not care about the well being of his customers

On more then one occasion, Neelix ignores signs of illness in his mess hall. In one episode, the Doctor responds to a report of a medical emergency in the mess hall, but when he arrives, he finds nothing is wrong until a crewman slumps over ill while he is standing there. What is then revealed is that the mess hall is in a temporal anomaly that makes it six minutes behind the rest of the ship. This implies that Neelix let a man sit slumped over on a table without doing anything for six whole minutes!

When something is not working as well as he would like it to in his kitchen, Neelix goes to the one person in his mess hall that is basically in no shape to be messing around with his stuff. The very pregnant science officer, Ensign Wildman, instead of any of the other science or engineering officers in the same room. Unsurprisingly, this results in the poor woman going into labor.

When an ever-increasing number of crew members succumb to an unexplained case of possible food poisoning, overwhelming the sickbay (manned by Tom Paris at the time), Neelix refuses to stop serving the food that is causing the symptoms. While he does help his victims get to sickbay for treatment, he does nothing to prevent any further cases of possible food poisoning. Of course the correct procedure is throw out the offending food in order to just play it safe. No amount of excuses about not wanting to be wasteful can justify his continuing to poison the crew.

Conclusion

"I wouldn't trust you running a bath, let alone a fucking restaurant!"

"Janeway: So - has Neelix concocted anything interesting this morning?
Kim: There's an ancient Chinese curse, Captain: 'May you live in interesting times.' Mealtime is always interesting, now that Neelix is in the kitchen."

—Kathryn Janeway and Harry Kim

Neelix is a horrible example for anyone on how to operate a kitchen in every sense of the word. Admittedly this is fault of the writers of the show, not Ethan Phillips: he can only do what he is told to do on set. The real problem is the writers and set designers rather than the actor playing the character. However, this absurdity shows how little the writers of Voyager cared about actually making Neelix look competent.

Most of the safety nightmares in Neelix's kitchen result from only caring about making sure the fact Neelix is "cooking" is clear to the audience or to have flashy flames visible on camera. It is also a TV writer's syndrome I like to call "goldfish disease": writers think that viewers are goldfish, so if they can't see everything to do with an activity like cooking, they won't believe it's being done. This leads to pots on burners way to high to actually cook in to ensure that when the pot is being used, the fire can be seen too (this is of course ignoring the idea that you can make a pot look like it's boiling without even needing flames using a simple fish tank aerator). You have to wonder if they've ever set foot in a kitchen before or ever seen an actual cooking show.

It is a sad reality that a cook book has been produced featuring Neelix on the cover. I'd rather see the book with Sisko on the cover, as he at least seems to know what he is doing. The sad part of this book is that recipes that had to be created by competent chefs (the book credits Ethan Phillips and William J. Birnes) are now associated with the insult to culinary arts that is Neelix.