This topic isn't a list of recipes for specific foods but rather a list of the rules and nuances of cooking that I have discovered through watching the cooking gameplay videos. All information is derived directly from gameplay footage and contains none of my own personal conjecture. Why not make a list of cooked dishes and how to make them? Frankly, such lists already exist, and
an almost infinite number of food combinations exist to create food dishes with the same name but different effects and healing properties. Accordingly, the name of a food conveys very little information. I haven't seen others make some of these observations, so I hope this topic will prove useful to those who wish to learn new information about cooking. I'll list the most obvious information first, but be warned that cooking and potion making seems to be an extremely nuanced science in this game, so this post will be extremely long.
DISCLAIMER: This informational post is based on data gleaned from footage ranging from mid 2016 to January 2017. Accordingly, some of the information may be from an earlier build of the game which is no longer relevant.
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I. There are multiple categories of items used in cooking
I've observed at least 5 different categories, but there are doubtlessly more. I'll list them all in further detail, including their rules of interaction.
A. Generic Raw Food
These food items restore health while providing no secondary effects. Steaks and apples are examples of generic food. A single generic food item can be placed on top of a campfire to roast it, increasing its healing effects by at least 50% (in the case of the humble Hylian Shroom, the base healing is actually increased by 200%). Generic food items (from one to five) can also be combined in a cooking pot in order to create a dish which heals for 2 times the sum of the raw healing values of the ingredients. The formula for determining the healing value of a food dish is as follows:
- (A + B + C + D + E) x 2 = Y
where A through E are the raw healing values of each of the five cooking ingredients and Y is the healing value of the resulting cooked food. For example, a dish made with a raw steak (1 heart value) and a Hylian Shroom (0.5 heart value) can be combined to create a dish with a total healing value of 3 hearts ([1 + 0.5] x 2 = 3). The name of the created dish is irrelevant; all dishes (with one logical exception, to be discussed in part II) follow this formula to determine the amount of health healed by the dish. A different formula is used to calculate secondary effects, but we'll address this later.
B. Monster Parts
Items in this category are not edible by themselves and have no effect unless combined with an item that possesses a secondary effect. The resulting item is always named "Elixir," but depending on the secondary item used, it will have various prefixes (for example, Sneaky Elixir, Hasty Elixir, etc). These items can (presumably) only be obtained by defeating certain enemies. The effect of using multiple monster parts (of the same name or of different names) in a single elixir is currently unknown. It is also currently unknown if monster parts with different names create elixirs with varying strengths.
C. Raw Food with Secondary Effects
This category consists of items which have the following properties: These items possess a special property aside from simple health restoration, and these items can be combined with generic food in order to produce a cooked dish with secondary effects. This category is where things start to get complicated, and these complications will be addressed a bit later in section IV. Some items in this category can be eaten raw and provide a healing effect (Spicy Pepper, Courser bee honey), whereas others provide no intrinsic healing effect but can still be used in cooking (Blue Nightshade).
D. Elixir Ingredients
Items in this category can be combined with monster parts to create elixirs, and they cannot be consumed by themselves (and thus they have no raw healing value). Furthermore, unlike food with secondary effects, Elixir ingredients cannot be used to cook anything besides elixirs and "Dubious Food". All insects are members of this category, but that does not imply that the only members of this category are insects. Combining a single item in this category with only items in the Generic Food category will create "Dubious Food" which possesses a healing value of the sum of the healing values of all of the ingredients. In some cases these items can be combined successfully with generic food to make elixirs with healing properties, and the rules determining these interactions will be discussed later in part III
E. Inedible ingredients
These items have no primary or secondary effects, and their item descriptions make no reference to cooking (examples include gems/minerals like Topaz and Amber). If combined with other food items, the result will be "Failed Experiment", which restores 0.25 hearts regardless of the healing values of the food used. It is unknown how these interact with monster parts.
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II. The exception to the heart restoration cooking formula
As stated previously, any cooked dish will heal for 2 times the sum of the raw healing values of the ingredients. The sole exception is when a dish is cooked which includes an ingredient that possesses the secondary effect of increasing Link's maximum hearts (a Hearty Truffle, for example). The resulting cooked dish will ALWAYS fully heal Link regardless of the raw healing values of the component items. Furthermore, Link will gain a varying number of maximum hearts based on the number of food items used which possess the secondary effect of increasing Link's maximum hearts. For example, 1 steak + 4 Hearty Truffles will fully heal link and increase his max hearts by 4, whereas 1 steak + 1 hearty truffle will fully heal Link and increase his max hearts by 1.
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III. Examining cooking priority
If multiple ingredients from different item categories are mixed, how does one determine the resulting item? Luckily, the hierarchy in this case seems to be relatively simple (except for #3... why are there always exceptions?) The hierarchy is as follows:
- Elixir
- Dubious food
- Food with secondary effect
- Generic cooked food
The first priority cooking item may in fact be Failed Experiment, but I don't have direct evidence to support this. We can see this hierarchy in action through an example. Normally, we know that combining a monster part with a generic food item will create dubious food. But, if we combine a monster part, an elixir ingredient, and THEN a generic food item(s), we will create en elixir instead of dubious food. Furthermore, this elixir will also heal Link based on the cooking formula that we reviewed above! As an example which is verified in Nintendo footage, imagine cooking with a Sizzlewing Butterfly, Bird Meat, Hylian Shroom, and Bokoblin Fang. Sizzlewing Butterfly is an Elixir Ingredient which possesses the secondary property of increasing cold resistance, and Bokoblin Fang is a monster part. Right away, we know that a cold-resistance Elixir will be created, since Monster Part + Elixir Ingredients make an Elixir, and Elixirs have top priority in the cooking hierarchy. Bird Meat and Hylian Shroom are both Generic Food, possessing raw healing values of 1 and 0.5, respectively. Using the cooking formula ([1 + 0.5] x 2 = 3), we determine that the elixir also restores 3 hearts.
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IV. Secondary effects have their own rules
Alright, so right when you think that you're understanding a few things about cooking, secondary effects and their strange rules come along and shit all over your bed. Let's review some of the rules unique to secondary effects.
A. A cooked item (including elixirs) can only possess one secondary effect
In all the footage I have reviewed, I have never seen a dish that, for example, both increases maximum hearts and restores stamina. This logically means that there is some sort of priority to determine which secondary effect a food or Elixir will have when it's cooked when using multiple food items with secondary effects. The only example I could find in existing footage was a Nintendo rep cooking a meal with Blue Nightshade and Stamella Shroom. Oddly enough, even though both of these ingredients possess secondary effects, the resulting dish was a generic meal that had none! It is possible that, since both ingredients had different secondary effects, they cancelled each other out. It's impossible to tell from a single example, so secondary effect priority will have to be examined further upon release.
B. Secondary effects can vary in magnitude
Some effects (like stealth) use descriptors such as low/medium/high, whereas others use symbols. For example, cold resistance Elixirs prepared with Sizzlewing Butterfly have a single snowflake symbol which indicates its cold-resisting properties, whereas dishes prepared with Spicy Pepper have two snowflake symbols. Existing footage with spicy peppers shows that using more peppers increases the duration, but not the magnitude, of the cold-resistance effect. The magnitude of a secondary property is likely determined by the ingredient itself rather than the quantity of the ingredient used.
C. Durations of secondary effects appear wildly inconsistent
There is obviously some formula to determine the duration of a secondary effect, but its particulars are elusive. For example, a spicy elixir made from a Bokoblin fang and a Sizzlewing Butterfly produces "Spicy Elixir" with a cold-resistance duration of 190 seconds. By contrast, an Elixir created with a Bokoblin fang, a Sizzlewing Butterfly, a Bird Meat, and a Hylian Shroom creates a "Spicy Elixir" with a cold-resistance duration of 590 seconds, despite the fact that Bird meat and Hylian Shrooms are only generic food items with no secondary effects whatsoever. Clearly, the quantity of ingredients used in the recipe affect the resulting duration of the effect even if the ingredients are not related to the secondary effect. If we look at this another way, we see that the Monster Part is the catalyst of the cooking reaction, the Elixir Ingredient is the active ingredient, and food items serve to somehow strengthen or the resulting effect. Is the duration of the effect proportional to the raw healing value of the items used? Investigating secondary effect duration raises more questions at this point than it answers, so I'll have to examine it further upon release.
D. Cooked items with the same prefix may possess varying effects
When cooking with ingredients that have secondary properties, the resulting Elixir or food will have a prefix denoting its properties. Strangely enough, items with the same prefix are not necessarily created equal. If we refer to the previous example in the above paragraph, Link created two Spicy Elixirs with varying durations of cold resistance. Furthermore, if Link creates an item with the Hearty prefix, the amount of temporary hearts granted to link will vary based on which ingredient Link uses that possesses the property of increasing his maximum heart gauge. As an example, both Hearty Truffles and Hearty Radishes are food items with the secondary property of increasing maximum hearts and both yield foods with the "Hearty" prefix when used in cooking, but the magnitude of the effect will be greater when using Hearty Radishes.
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You've reached the end, congratulations! I plan to continue this line of questioning after the game's release, but doubtlessly this information will be expanded upon further in the official strategy guide. For now, speculating is part of the fun.
