Star Trek’s Best First Officer Is the Worst Cook Ever
When watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, it’s not hard to see why so many fans love Commander Riker. In addition to being a smart and capable officer, he seems to be a man of many talents, including playing the trombone. However, the episode “Time Squared” memorably demonstrates this erstwhile officer is surprisingly terrible at cooking.
To be fair to this absurd cold opening, the Star Trek writers are completely in on the joke that Riker merely believes himself to be a good cook but is, in fact, awful.
The cold open of the Star Trek episode has Riker preparing a meal for guests. He takes great pride in his omelets, and when his guests arrive (Data, Geordi LaForge, and Dr. Pulaski), the commander explains to an incredulous Data why he doesn’t simply replicate the meal: Riker acknowledges the replicator is quick and efficient, but he needs more “subtlety for great cooking.” He claims that his own cooking is “artistry” and describes how he grew up without a mom and had to do the cooking for both himself and his father.
To be fair to this absurd cold opening, the Star Trek writers are completely in on the joke that Riker merely believes himself to be a good cook but is, in fact, awful. As his guests start eating the omelets, Geordi begins coughing while Dr. Pulaski makes a face of pure disgust. With perfect comedic timing, the Klingon warrior Worf clears the entire plate and gives his one-word Yelp review: “delicious.”
So far, so good: for whatever reason, the Star Trek writers went out of their way to demonstrate that Riker is a surprisingly awful cook. However, the more you watch the scene, the more it turns into a video version of those children’s books that ask you to identify everything that is wrong with the picture. As for this scene, what’s wrong is…well…everything.
For one thing, it’s not immediately clear whether he is serving everyone breakfast or dinner. Certainly, serving nothing but “omelets” (more on his omelet abomination in a minute) would indicate breakfast, but the scene is very dim, and Pulaski brings beers for everyone. We don’t know exactly what shift Picard is working, but he soon summons Riker to the bridge, and at the bare minimum, that makes it weird they were about to drink from Pulaski’s giant flask of real ale (not the synthehol whose effects they could easily shake) before potentially going on duty.
Interestingly, Star Trek: Picard had the chance to give Riker something of a culinary redemption, with Season 1 revealing that he loves to make pizza in a pizza oven.
But let’s forget about Star Trek day drinking and focus on what, exactly, made Riker’s omelets so awful. For one thing, he doesn’t add anything to the omelets; for another, once the camera gets up close, it’s easy to see that these are actually scrambled eggs. Either the first officer of the Starfleet flagship who learned to cook from a young age doesn’t actually know what an omelet is, or he’s playing an elaborate joke on his friends.
The Star Trek writers made it clear that what Riker is cooking isn’t even an omelette: it’s scrambled eggs.
The joke theory might have additional credence because this Star Trek episode makes it clear that Riker made his “omelets” using exotic eggs from a starbase the ship recently visited. That may sound nice in theory, but the implication is that he has never even tasted the eggs himself before putting them into an unseasoned dish. And even if the food was vaguely edible, he only served one small portion of a single dish to everyone, reinforcing that he just wanted to give his besties carbs and alcohol before they all went on duty.
Interestingly, Star Trek: Picard had the chance to give Riker something of a culinary redemption, with Season 1 revealing that he loves to make pizza in a pizza oven. His ‘za looks better than his scrambled eggs pretending to be omelets, but in season three, Deanna Troi teases him by joking that he’s “good in bed, bad at pizza.” He may have risen through the ranks and become a legend in his own right, but it seems like Riker’s inability to cook is more consistent than surprise appearances by the Borg.
