a roast or something deep-fried maybe? a oven or hot fat is always good for disaster
otherwise maybe some poached trout for Toby?

Quiche.

It involves baking skills to make the crust, and more traditional cooking skills for the filling. Plenty of chances for things to go wrong, and plenty of flour and eggs to get everywhere.

Yes, but souffle jokes are overused. And quiche is easy if you know what you're doing. If someone doesn't even know the measurements, then it's going to be a disaster.

Quiche actually sounds like what I'll use (as much fun as poutine could have been). It requires measurements and sets up a few interesting jokes.

It should be fun regardless -- Toby has literally no idea how to cook food for himself. He has never had to do it. Growing up, he was provided for. The servants would do the cooking. In the refugee camp, he was again given his food. These days Lex cooks for him.

Poutine, but make them argue nonstop about what the proper pronunciation of the dish is. (As an homage to Fred)

Also, I always think of Futurama in this sort of situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP6bKh4lfzI
In one episode, a chef is cooking a slug that grows enormously and tries to eat the chef when used as a live ingredient.
Maybe something like that?

Otherwise, maybe an new type of cooking oil that has a smoke point and flash point that are so close that the meal explodes if unattended for a couple of minutes.
The oil may be a huge delicacy and cheap, but just too volatile for normal people to want.

Just a few thoughts.

Poutine would be kinda funny -- especially a nod to the first time Fred visited me and tried it and the subsequent Canada Day at Anthrocon where we made a ton of the stuff :>

I remember watching his stream and that seemed to be about half of what he talked about that whole weekend.

We ate so much of it on his second visit to Canada. It was almost daily. =_=

Once he discovered DONAIR poutine though... I think I gained 4lbs on his last visit.