The Little Things in Harvest Moon: Virtues of Cooking

In an earlier post, I listed the first Cooked Dishes that could be made in Harvest Moon DS and Harvest Moon Cute DS as soon as you acquire a kitchen but do not have any implements. In that post, I concentrated on the value of Cooked Dishes as gifts for other people. In this post, I am going to discuss the virtue of Cooked Dishes primarily in terms of restoring energy.

The first implement that you can obtain from the Shopping Network is the Mixer. With the Mixer, you can transform Fruits and Vegetables into Juices and Lattes and make a couple of very important basic items like Butter and Ketchup. You actually can make Fish Sticks as well.

Again, I am not going to list ALL the Mixer Recipes here but only the ones that can be made in the first half of the first Summer of gameplay.

Fruit Juice
1 Strawberry

Fruit Latte
1 Fruit Juice
1 Milk

Vegetable Juice
1 Cucumber
1 Milk

Vegetable Latte
1 Vegetable Juice
1 Milk

Mix Juice
1 Fruit Juice
1 Vegetable Juice

Mix Latte
1 Mix Juice
1 Milk

Strawberry Milk
1 Strawberry
1 Milk

Tomato Juice
1 Tomato

Peach Juice
1 Peach

Grape Juice
1 Wild Grape

Butter
1 Milk

Ketchup
1 Tomato
1 Onion

Fish Sticks
1 Medium or 1 Large Fish

Here are the energy values for each of these dishes:

Fruit Juice: +20 SR -15 FR
Fruit Latte: +30 SR -15 FR
Vegetable Juice: +20 SR -20 FR
Vegetable Latte: +30 SR -20 FR
Mix Juice: +50 SR -30 FR
Mix Latte: +60 SR -20 FR
Strawberry Milk: +30 SR -15 FR
Tomato Juice: +20 SR -20 FR
Grape Juice: +7 SR -13 FR
Peach Juice: +10 SR -10 FR
Fish Sticks: +5 SR -1 FR

Butter: +1 SR -0 FR
Ketchup: +1 SR -0 FR

It will come as no surprise to discover that the energy values of Butter and Ketchup are minimal. What is interesting is the difference between the Energy Values of a Medium Fish consumed without cooking preparation, the same Medium Fish blended in a Mixer into Fish Sticks and the same Medium Fish made into Sashimi as a 'No Tool' Recipe. Here are the values:

Medium Fish eaten raw: +4 SR -1 FR
Fish Sticks: +5 SR -1 FR
Sashimi: +30 SR -3 FR

The simple act of throwing a crop into a Mixer can enhance its energy values enormously. Not all crops can be made into Juice, but many can. Here are the differences between the raw crop and the same crop as Juice:

Strawberry Milk: +30 SR -15 FR
Strawberry: +5 SR -2 FR

Tomato Juice: +20 SR -20 FR
Tomato: +4 SR -1 FR

Grape Juice: +7 SR -13 FR
Wild Grape: +10 SR -2 FR

Peach Juice: +10 SR -10 FR
Peach: +2 SR -3 FR

As you can see, in most cases, the Stamina value will be far greater if the crop is made into Juice. The Fatigue recovery will be substantially greater as well. The only anomaly here is the Wild Grape. It has a much higher Stamina value when consumed raw BUT its value in terms of reducing Fatigue is far greater when made into Juice. Grape Juice, by the way, can be made either with a regular Grape from a grapevine or from a wild grape.

Very often, players of Harvest Moon games become seduced by the concept of Elli Leaves and focus on them exclusively when cooking for energy purposes, but as you can see, there are many easy recipes for cooked dishes that will restore energy significantly. Elli Leaves cannot be made until you have EVERY cooking implement in your kitchen. The recipes given here require nothing more than the Mixer.