8 Gaming Foods We Want
While there are many gaming foods that don’t exist, some games include food we’re very familiar with from our store shelves or recipes we have in our cookbooks. These lists will avoid cooking games for obvious reasons but it may include games that have extensive menus with culinary chefs. Some items can be imitated utilizing ingredients that are at our disposal but many of the items include ingredients that we simply don’t have access to. These are eight gaming foods we want and five we already have.
8. Chocobos – Final Fantasy XV
Ever since I played Final Fantasy VII and fell in love with the franchise, I’ve wondered what the big yellow chickens known as Chocobos taste like. Do they taste like chicken? Are they gamey? Are they juicy? Would we roast them for Thanksgiving if they were real? All of these questions may never be answered if we never discover the elusive species conceived by Square Enix. While many items on Ignis’ menu are just as real as chicken, some don’t exist due to the fruit not growing on our planet or the species simply not existing. While my curiosity leads me to want a try of the poultry produced by Chocobos, it’s my pride that makes me wonder what a smoked Behemoth tastes like. Sure, the gargantuan and hard-hitting beasts look disgusting but if it’s good enough for Ignis, it’s good enough for us. The only thing better than conquering such a beast is roasting its meat on an open campfire in Final Fantasy XV.
7. Fruits and Fungi – Super Mario Bros. / Super Mario Sunshine
The Super Mario franchise has been one of the best headliners in Nintendo’s catalog since the 80’s. Mario is the mascot of the company and despite titles such as The Legend of Zelda and Pokemon coming along and gaining popularity since Mario made his debut, he’s remained atop the pinnacle of the Big N. Not long from now, Super Nintendo Land will be coming to North America and some of these foods may transition from fiction to reality but for now, these are simply recommendations. Since 1983, Nintendo fans have wondered what it would be like to have a Super Mushroom in this life, becoming giant as if we went through a sudden and drastic growth spurt. While magic mushrooms may have inspired the life preserving item of Super Mario Bros., we don’t recommend experimenting with fungus. A newer item of food introduced to the Super Mario franchise came with Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube in 2002. The new food is the various fruits of the Isle Delfino fruit. The Isle Delfino fruit is primarily found in the Delfino Plaza and it’s mostly used as nutrition for Yoshi once he’s unlocked.
6. Sea Salt Ice Cream – Kingdom Hearts Series
Several items on this list include multiple items but some focus on one item from one game and with Kingdom Hearts, there’s only one food I want: Sea Salt ice cream. There are many recipes for fans of the Square Enix and Disney collaboration to create their own versions of Sea Salt ice cream but it’s unlikely that anybody has created a version of it that’s precise. For all we know, the ingredients needed to make this deliciously blue popsicle don’t all exist in this plane of existence but we definitely know that it isn’t on store shelves for all of us to consume. There are many recipes in Kingdom Hearts that exist and the Square Enix cafe in Japan brings to life many items from the menu, Sea Salt ice cream is what we truly want from this franchise.
5. Fizzco Drinks – Sunset Overdrive
Although the energy drink that took over the world in Sunset Overdrive seems like a dangerous rabbit hole we shouldn’t go down, I can’t help but be curious about OverCharge Delerium XT and how it tastes. The orange Fizzco drink wasn’t interested in health code when it released in Sunset Overdrive and included a chemical known as extremeophiles which caused an outbreak of humans turning into mutants. Provided this drink could be made for our consumption without the extremeophiles, we’d be interested to see what the successor of UNTZ tastes like. Should Insomniac create a human-safe version of this energy drink, we’d recommend they release UNTZ as well, so the gamers can decide which one is really better.
4. Wumpa Fruit – Crash Bandicoot
When Crash released in 1996, the titular hero collected a plump fruit known as Wumpa fruit but it’s unclear what the fruit would taste like. The fruit resembles an apple and a peach combined, but it would be more apricot or plum flavor based on the appearance. Wumpa Fruit is apparently Crash’s favorite food and he’s been collecting millions of these juicy fruits since the 90’s. From the original trilogy to Crash Team Racing, the infamous PlayStation bandicoot has been consuming kilograms of this fruit. If it’s good enough for Crash, it’s good enough for us and it clearly has some sort of vitamins to keep Crash going for so long.
3. Feast, Festivities and Conjurations – World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft has included cooking as a secondary profession since it released in 2004 and it has only been expanded upon since then. While there are many recipes that I’d like to try in my lifetime, the main thing that a raider will see before a boss battle is the first thing I want to try: feasts. These feasts give everybody some sort of buff depending on the feast, the class eating, etc. There are some items in the cookbook that can be made right now such as charred wolf meat and crab cakes, there are also recipes that may have been made earlier in Earth’s history such as roast raptor and Mammoth Meal, but ultimately most cooking recipes are fictional. I’d love to try most of the seasonal foods, from the cookies and eggnog of the Feast of Winter Veil to the beer and sausage of Brewfest and everything in between. Finally, it would be amazing if we could solve world hunger by conjuring food to accompany all of the real food we have, allowing us to eat one for taste and the other for nutrients. World of Warcraft is full of delicious food and I want to see more of it materialized before my eyes.
2. Curry and Rare Candy – Pokemon series
Pokemon has always fascinated me due to the collectible monsters and the world they inhabit, but there are also some delicious foods referenced and consumed from the original titles and every game since. This desire for Pokemon foods began with the Rare Candy in Pokemon Red and Blue which allows any monster to level up. Similar to the Chocobo but much more family friendly, I’ve always wondered what this candy tastes like. Is it a hard candy? Is it a gummy? Does it taste like salt water taffy or licorice? I’ve been curious since the titles released in 1996 and this curiosity hasn’t dwindled since. Gold and Silver introduced Moo Moo Milk which is presumably the same flavor and texture as milk we’re familiar with, but it’s clearly tastier due to both Pokemon and humans in the TV series consuming the specialty milk. Pokemon Sword & Shield introduced the Curry Dex which includes many curry flavors we may be familiar with but the recipes are berries which have mostly been part of the franchise since the second generation. These curries can rank from Koffing quality to Charizard quality, with Wobbuffet, Milcery and Copperajah rounding out the rest of the five classes. I’ll take some Charizard curry with Moo Moo Milk to drink and a Rare Candy for desert please and thank you, Nintendo.
1. Nuka-Cola, Nuka-Grape, Nuka-Cherry, Oh My! – Fallout Series
Fallout seems like a weird series to find delicious foods in, especially when many of the foods are radiated due to the apocalyptic nuclear war the world created in this Bethesda series. While I’m not interested in radiation poisoning, I’ve always wondered just how well Nuka-Cola stacks up to Coca-Cola or Pepsi Cola. While Jones Soda recently created their version of Nuka-Cola Quantum, I can’t help but think that the deliciously blue beverage doesn’t restore HP. I’m less interested in Nuka Cherry but Nuka Grape may be good enough to replace Grape Crush as my favorite grape beverage. Nuka-Cola inspired a theme park in Fallout 4 in a way that Tayto inspired a potato chip-themed park in Ireland so there’s no doubt that the carbonated beverage is just as good or better than any cola available on store shelves today. While I’m at it, I’d also like to know what Deathclaw Steak and Bloatfly meat taste like with the radiation removed.
Click on through to the next page for the video game foods we already have…