Recipes vary from Game to Game: Take Care!

I have written Cookbook Recipe Guides for almost every Harvest Moon game I have played. Many basic recipes are the same essentially from game to game but there are those that differ and when they do, mistakes can be costly.

There are differences in the Utensils that are available from game to game. Although recipes tend to be easier in Harvest Moon DS and Cute DS, I for one miss the Seasoning Set from Mineral Town games. Seasonings often are optional but once in awhile, can be critical to the success of a cooking venture.

For example, Ketchup in HM DS and HM Cute DS is made in a Mixer with a Tomato and an Onion. In Boy & Girl, you MUST use seasonings or it will be a Food Fiasco. The actual utensil used to make Mayonnaise in Boy & Girl is different from that used in HM DS and Cute DS. A Whisk is used in Boy & Girl, where a Mixer is used in HM DS and Cute DS. Recipes in FoMT and MFoMT are virtually identical to those in Boy & Girl, though, so if you have been playing either of those recently, and go on to play Boy & Girl, you will not be in any danger of becoming confused.

As a matter of fact, the special Recipes that are given to you by various villagers are given in the same words in many instances. I am waiting now to see if Anna holds a Baking Class in Boy & Girl on Saturday mornings. So far, although Manna delivered her set speech about Anna's expertise in baking, there have been no actual classes. It is early days, though...

Incidentally, if you are not fastidious by nature, you can eat your Food Fiasco for a little boost in energy. A gift of a Food Fiasco is useful if you wish to lower heart levels as well.

As in many Harvest Moon games, the actual gift that you receive at the Thanksgiving Festival will depend on heart level. If you wish to obtain all possible gifts, you need to have the eligible girls at different heart levels. As a boy, at the lowest level, you will obtain chocolate, ironically more rare an item in HM Boy & Girl than Chocolate Cake.

The Power of Curry in Harvest Moon

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Any one who is familiar with Harvest Moon games will know that Curry is a potent dish and one of the most controversial. In HM DS and HM Cute DS in particular, various types of Curries can make or break a relationship as well as winning the Cooking Contest and unlocking the heart of Keira the Sleeping Beauty.

There are individuals who adore Curry and individuals who detest it. Most events that involve both Carter and Flora revolve round the topic of Curry. Flora loves it and cooks it at every opportunity. The Professor hates and dreads it. He will plead in vain with Flora NOT to cook it. He even will invent a date with YOU in Cute to avoid a Curry lunch...

Skye's entire career as a thief is based on a desire to make the best Curries in the world. It should be no surprise then to discover that his Most Favourite Gift is Ultimate Curry. He loves all other special Curry and likes ordinary Curry Rice...
Be careful, however, NOT to assume that any dish made with Curry Powder will please Skye. He loathes Curry Bread, Curry Bun, Dry Curry (-800 AP -9 FP) and his Secret Weapon of Hate is Curry Noodles (-5000 AP -20 FP).

Here is a list of the ordinary bachelors of the Valley and their responses to Curry:


Griffin: Likes Curry +300 AP +3 FP
Gustafa: Loves Curry (+500 AP +9 FP)
Marlin: Likes Curry (+300 AP +3 FP)
Rock: Loves special Curry (+500 AP +9 FP) and Likes ordinary Curry (+300 AP +3 FP)
Skye: Adores Finest Curry (+800 AP +9 FP), loves other special Curry (+500 AP +9 FP) and Likes Curry Rice (+300 AP +3 FP)

Secret Weapon of Hate:
Carter: Ultimate Curry (-5000 AP -20 FP)

The 'Secret Weapon of Hate', by the way, is the item in the game that will cause the bachelor's AP to plunge 5000 points and his FP to drop by 20. There is only one item that will have this effect on any bachelor. It is useful to know because if you are the sort of player who, like me, first raises every bachelor's heart level at least to Yellow to experience all Heart Events, you ultimately need to LOWER that heart level to experience the Rival Heart Events that will allow the bachelors you do not marry to marry your Rival instead. Part of the fun of Harvest Moon is experiencing all possible Heart Events, but each event is worth points towards your Farming Degree as well. That is the reason the Secret Weapon of Hate is extremely useful. Using it only twice (on two different days), you can decrease any bachelor's heart level in Cute a full level. The same holds true for any eligible girl in the original 'boy' version of Harvest Moon for DS.

What does the creation of Curry entail? In fact, some Curries are a lot of work and are made at considerable expense! A simple Curry Rice requires only one Riceball and one Curry Powder made in a Pot, but each 'Coloured' Curry requires a Wild Grass as well. Rainbow Curry, as you might imagine, is a dish made using 8 different Curries.

The recipe for Rainbow Curry is:

Curry Rice
Orange Curry
Yellow Curry
Red Curry
Purple Curry
Indigo Curry
Blue Curry
Green Curry

Wild Grasses are collected from the wilds in different seasons. You will not be able to make Rainbow Curry unless you have collected and stored all the grasses required to complete the dish. When you realise that each Coloured Curry is made with 1 Riceball, 1 Curry Powder and 1 Wild Grass, you will see that the creation of Rainbow Curry requires an outlay in gold of 1600G, 100G for each Riceball and 100G for each packet of Curry Powder.

Rainbow Curry, however, is not the ultimate Curry. The ultimate Curry is named 'Ultimate Curry' and it, with the 'Finest Curry' are the most valuable Curries in the game in terms of pleasing some individuals.

If you do not know the recipe for the Ultimate Curry, you mistakenly might assume that its ingredients are more valuable even than those used to create the Rainbow Curry. In fact, with typical Harvest Moon humour, most of the ingredients required to create the Ultimate Curry are 'Failed Dishes', often known as 'Burnt Food' in other Harvest Moon games.

You can create a 'Failed Dish' with any ingredient that cannot be combined successfully but the least expensive ingredient that can be used to create a 'Failed Dish' is a common weed. It is important to collect weeds throughout the year to store in your Shelf for use in Winter as you will find NO weeds in the wilds in the Winter Season. The 'Ultimate Curry', the 'Finest Curry' and the famed 'Elli Leaves' are made with Failed Dishes.

The Recipe for Ultimate Curry is:

Rainbow Curry
Black Curry
Failed No Tool Dish
Failed Mixer Dish
Failed Steamer
Failed Frying Pan Dish
Failed Oven Dish
Failed Pot Dish

The only difference between this Recipe and that for Finest Curry is the substitution of White Curry for Black Curry.

Recorded recipes can be used as a shortcut to prepare a dish that you previously have made successfully in your kitchen. If you use a recorded recipe to create a dish, the game automatically will collect the necessary ingredients from your rucksack and/or refrigerator. There are no recorded recipes for Failed Dishes, however. A Failed Dish made using a Frying Pan is quite different from one made using an Oven. I have included photographs of each here. In making a dish that uses all six Failed Dishes, you must make each one separately. Furthermore, you will be unable to access your Shelf from your kitchen, so you must make certain to have Weeds in your rucksack if you wish to use them to create your Failed Dishes.

The time required to create six different Failed Dishes is quite significant. Any bachelor or eligible girl who loves Ultimate or Finest Curry must be impressed by the time and energy you have taken to create these incredible dishes for him/her!

As my Pot was delivered by Thomas to my farmhouse this morning, I now will be able to create the Ultimate Curry for Skye and give it to him each night while he wanders the paths of the Valley... Unfortunately, I will not be able to make the 'Finest Curry' that would raise his heart a full level in three nights. Even so, my 'Ultimate Curry' will raise his AP by 500 rather than 300 points each night. Before I had a Pot, even the most valuable jewelry would raise his Affection only by 300 points! When Winter arrives, I will be able to give Skye his Most Favourite item in the world, the 'Finest Curry'.

N.B. The photographs show different 'pages' in my Refrigerator Menu. There are 9 different 'pages' each in your Refrigerator and Shelf. Each 'page' contains 18 slots. Each slot can accommodate up to 99 of a single item. The largest rucksack consists of three 'pages', each with 18 slots. Again, you can store up to 99 of the same item in each slot. Edible items are stored in the Refrigerator. Non-edible items are stored in the Shelf. Some items, like a weed, are not considered 'edible' unless used in a recipe. There are a few recipes in HM DS and HM Cute DS that require a weed as an ingredient. In FoMT and MFoMT, gems and other non-edible items could be 'cooked' in order to create 'Suns' but in HM DS and Cute, the Suns are found in the Third Mine. You had to create all four Suns in FoMT/MFoMT but there was no use for them in those games. In HM DS and Cute, they are used to generate sunlight in your Basements, allowing you to grow crops. One of the more intriguing aspects of Harvest Moon is the way that items evolve from game to game. Players long puzzled over the mystery of the 'Suns' and how they could be used. It only is now, with the release of HM DS and Cute, that we have a definitive answer!

I tend to be very organised in the way I store my items and, as an inveterate pack rat, I begin to store items from the first day of gameplay, purchasing larger rucksacks and storage units (Refrigerator and Shelf) at the earliest possible opportunity. I ship very little until I have ample stores of every item to see me through the Winter... I therefore even store the early Spring vegetables like Turnips and Cucumbers in my rucksack in the first Spring... It can be awkward but it is worth it to me, as I then can cook most dishes as soon as I have a Kitchen, without having to wait for a Basement to be built. Furthermore, I hold off on the second expansion of my House until I have ALL Cooking implements, as I feel that a Basement really is not needed until the Winter Season. By the third week of Autumn in the first year, I have all Cooking Implements and am free to order the second House expansion. All bachelors are almost at red heart level by then and I have the Blue Feather... Purchasing the Big Bed before this occurs is a waste of time more than money, as the offer of the Big Bed will be made by the Shopping Network as soon as your 2nd house expansion is completed. I am a very organised player! There are other players like me, but just as many who would rather NOT think about all this stuff and simply enjoy their Harvest Moon lives, taking things as they come.

More Energy Tips for HM DS and HM Cute

It is interesting to note the very different effects of different cooked dishes made using the same ingredients. For example, using a simple tomato, you can make all sorts of different dishes in Harvest Moon DS or Harvest Moon Cute.

There are players who completely ignore the various effects of 'Recipes' in Harvest Moon games and who make the dish only once in order to complete their Shipping List. There are other players, like myself, who delight in every permutation of Harvest Moon games and who explore every possible avenue from mining to cooking in order to maximise their enjoyment of the world encapsulated in Harvest Moon.

One does forget some details, however, especially when one has played other games and written guides for them in the interim. By writing my new guides for HM Cute, I am able to revisit my original guides for HM DS and improve them.

In both games, it takes almost two seasons to complete the Kitchen with all implements. The Shopping Network offers one item each week and no more, apart from the items offered exclusively to the Harvest Sprites. As your character cannot acquire korobos, the Harvest Sprite items are out of reach. If you pay close attention to the descriptions of those items, you will understand that they are extremely impractical in any case.

Returning to the kitchen, however and to Harvest Moon in general, players should understand that there is a reason why one should collect items and store them even before you are able to buy a Refrigerator or Shelf. Your first opportunity to acquire a Refrigerator and Shelf will occur in the first Summer, but there are many Spring crops and wild items that are needed to complete Recipes. If you keep a few of these in your Rucksack until you are able to buy the Refrigerator and Shelf, you will be pleased that you did.

The kitchen becomes available in the first Summer as well, provided always that you expanded your house once and bought the other items offered by the Shopping Network. As previously stated, cooking implements then are offered each week, beginning with the Mixer. At the start of the second week of Autumn, you should have a Mixer, a Frying Pan and a Steamer, giving you far more choices in Recipes than you had with only a Kitchen.

A Tomato is a Summer crop but it is recommended that you collect quite a few tomatoes and ears of corn and store them in your Fridge before the season ends. You ultimately will be able to order up to three Basements from Gotz and grow crops in any season in them but in your first Autumn, you probably will not have a Basement. In any case, it is rather pointless to expand your house twice and spend your gold on a Basement before the first Winter. Your energy and gold are better spent on a Kitchen, Kitchen implements, tool upgrades and Makers from Grey.

By the second week in Autumn, I usually have three Animal Barns, three Bird Barns, a Mushroom Shed, a Maker Shed, all Makers and a full set of Blessed Tools. I upgrade my house only ONCE in order to be able to buy the Fridge, Shelf, Kitchen and all Kitchen implements as early as possible. If you upgrade your house a second time, the Big Bed will be offered immediately. There is absolutely NO POINT in buying the Big Bed BEFORE you have rescued 60 Sprites and the Harvest Goddess. Even if you have a bachelor at red heart level and have experienced all four of his Heart Events, he will not accept your marriage proposal until the Harvest Goddess has been rescued.

The reason I have 3 Animal Barns and 3 Bird Barns so early in the game is to rescue Sprites, by the way. At this point in the game, I have rescued 59 Sprites. I will be able to rescue the Harvest Goddess within a few days. All I need to do is ship 1 Bell Pepper to rescue the 60th Sprite...

The subject of this post ostensibly was Energy Tips, however, not gameplay tips in general.

Taking 1 Tomato harvested in Summer, one can make the following in the second week of Autumn in the first year.

First, one could eat the Tomato raw. That would give you: +3 SR -1 FR, restoring your Stamina by 3 points and reducing your Fatigue by 1 point. This is NOT the best use for your Tomato, however, as you might have guessed.

Without using any Utensils, you can use the Tomato to make a Salad. 1 Tomato by itself will make a Salad and that will give you +20 SR -5 FR, restoring 20 points of Stamina and reducing your Fatigue by 5 points.

If you have the Mixer, however, you can make Tomato juice with 1 Tomato. That will give you +20 SR -20 FR, restoring both your Stamina by 20 points AND reducing your Fatigue by 20 points!

Thus, if you need both Stamina and Fatigue recovery, use your Mixer and 1 tomato to make a glass of Tomato Juice. It is far more potent than a Salad made with the same tomato.

Furthermore, it is far less expensive to consume two glasses of Tomato Juice made in your own kitchen than to buy a Turbojolt XL from Van for 2000 Gold.

Here again are the values of 1 Tomato in different forms:

1 Tomato raw: +3 SR -1 FR
Salad: +20 SR -5 FR
Tomato Juice: +20 SR -20 FR

As you can see, it pays to use your Kitchen and raw ingredients wisely in Harvest Moon.

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.

Food, food, Glorious Food in Harvest Moon DS

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Cooking and food in general are the subject of great interest in Harvest Moon games and Harvest Moon for the DS is no exception. There are a number of events, some quite hilarious, that deal with food either primarily or peripherally.

More than one Heart Event deals with food and/or cooking. Marlin's 3rd Heart Event occurs at the Blue Bar and results in your character drinking too much and having to be carried home, either by Marlin or by Griffin, depending on the response you give.
Skye's 2nd Heart Event involves a diversion created by the delicious odour of Curry... Curry Rice is the centre of Carter's 3rd Heart Event as he seeks to escape it. In Leia's 3rd Heart Event, you are asked to be her 'taster' for a new fish dish. Ruby's 150 FP Event involves a mistake in seasoning on her part. This is an event that occurs on Thursday in both the 'boy' and 'girl' versions of the game, by the way.

A number of Heart Events involve Ruby's kitchen. You will share a meal with Griffin in his 3rd Heart Event and with Carter in his, unless you fail to confirm his small deception.

Murrey, however, probably has the greatest number of events associated with food. There are events with the Gourmet, one of which is included in a previous post. In one event, Van will offer you a rare delicacy but Murrey will take your place at the counter and instead of giving it to you, Van mistakenly will hand it to Murrey. (That event is included both in the 'boy' and 'girl' versions of the game.

Too much food is the subject of an event between Van and Vesta. They will become quite rude to one another as they bicker over the subject of weight. The event will end with a challenge: they decide to participate in a contest to see who can lose the most weight before their next meeting.

Knowing how to cook greatly, whether your character is male or female, always increases your chances of winning the hearts of every one, but especially of any one you would like to marry. In many cases, an individual's 'Most Favourite' gift is a cooked dish. Completing your Recipe Book always is one of the subsidiary goals in any Harvest Moon game.

Knowing the dishes that each individual loves or detests is extremely important. Giving a character a cooked dish that he/she hates is as bad as giving an ordinary item that is disliked.

Knowing the value of food items in terms of Stamina and Fatigue is vital as well. Your character needs to know which items will restore the most energy... Every item, whether raw or cooked, has different effects in terms of Stamina and Fatigue. Some items actually will increase your Fatigue.

Kai is a character whose appearance is based on food. In the summers, he will open a stand on the beach.

Many of the Festivals in Harvest Moon games are centred on food. Special items such as Rice Cakes and Buckwheat Flour are obtained most easily at Festivals. In some Harvest Moon games, the only method by which to acquire these items is by attending the appropriate Festival. In Harvest Moon DS, the New Year Festival, the Cooking Festival, the Beach Festival, the Harvst Festival and the Year-End Festival all are devoted to Cooking and Eating.

Food and Cooking play an important part even in games like Rune Factory and 'An Innocent Life'. Part of the challenge and enjoyment of any Harvest Moon game is learning how to cook, finding rare ingredients and completing your Cookbook.