The Importance of a Well-Stocked Larder in Harvest Mooon

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I will publish posts about marriage to the remaining bachelors soon but I wished to write about something more general first: the importance of keeping a well-stocked refrigerator and shelf in Harvest Moon games.

There is a reason NOT to ship everything in Harvest Moon. Even though you won't be able to purchase a Kitchen in the first Spring, store some Spring crops and Spring wild grasses in your rucksack until you are able to transfer them to a Refrigerator. You will need EVERY item at some point to complete a recipe.

I wrote previously about the useful nature of Weeds and Junk Ore in creating Failed Dishes. In terms of ingredients, EVERY type of Wild Grass is vital in creating valuable dishes such as Rainbow Curry, Ultimate Curry, Finest Curry and Elli Leaves.

In Spring, you will be able to find two types of Wild Grass: Yellow Grass and Orange Grass. A beginner may look at the description of Orange Grass and think it is an item that is useless because it has no effect on Stamina or Fatigue. Well, consumed raw it is useless, but it can be used to create Orange Curry, a necessary ingredient in Rainbow Curry.

In Summer, you will find many different kinds of Wild Grasses, including Red Grass. Red Grass consumed raw is poisonous. Again, a beginner may consider it wrongly to be useless... but it can be used to create Red Curry, a necessary component of Rainbow Curry.

Rainbow Curry is a popular dish in its own right but beyond that, it is an ingredient both in Ultimate Curry and Finest Curry.

Furthermore, Spring Crops should be saved not only for use in recipes when you do have a kitchen because you will not be able to buy Spring Seeds in any season other than Spring. The same holds true for every Crop, apart from the seeds sold at the Casino Window, available throughout the year.

Remember that, once you have a Seedmaker, any Crop can be transformed into Seeds. Furthermore, once you have a Basement and the appropriate Sun, you will be able to grow crops year-round.

Every item has value... whether as a gift to win some one's heart or as an ingredient in a recipe. Never mistake a low shipping value for the ONLY value an item has.

I have included three photographs of my Refrigerator in the first week of Winter in my first Year. As you can see, I have every crop from every season, as well as all Wild Grasses. I have all types of Curry and every type of Failed Dish. The lone Big Fish at the bottom of the last 'page' is the gift from Mukumuku. I am a sentimental player. I always keep gifts from individuals. The rest of my Big Fish are on another 'page' but I wish to keep Mukumuku's gift separate. It is stored at the end of the last 'page' of Refrigerator items so the kitchen will not use it in cooking a recipe that uses a Big Fish...

These photographs are from HM Cute DS but the original Harvest Moon DS is the same where items are concerned. I will try to take some photographs of my old FoMT and MFoMT games as well in future. They do say a picture is worth a thousand words...

One final point: players often ask me how I can rescue 60 Sprites in my first year or marry some one before the end of the first year. Well, time is relative in Harvest Moon. I choose to play my games very slowly, to wring the maximum amount from each day of gameplay. Some players race through the seasons and years. I like to experience every event possible, to perform every task, to make every day COUNT. That is how I do everything 'so quickly'. It really isn't quick at all in terms of 'real time'! I can spend many real hours on a single Harvest Moon day.

The Value of Rubbish in Harvest Moon

Are you disgusted when you smash a rock and find a piece of Junk Ore instead of a gem? Do you become impatient with all the weeds that spring up constantly on every plot of land during Spring, Summer and Autumn? Are you disappointed when your fishing efforts net an old boot, a fishbone or an old tin instead of a Big Fish, Pirate Treasure or Fossil of Fish? Don't be! Every item in Harvest Moon can be utilised in a positive fashion. Every piece of rubbish has some value.

Obviously, you can ship any item of rubbish that you find but its shipping value is fairly minimal at 1G.

Old tins and fishbones are an acceptable gift for the Witch Princess. Her AP will increase by 300 points and her FP by 3 points when you give her a fishbone or tin. Do NOT make the mistake of giving her an old boot, though. She is quite particular when it comes to the rubbish that she values.

Apart from this, however, weeds, junk ore and rubbish can be extremely useful. In Spring, Summer and Autumn, collect and store weeds for cooking. There are a number of recipes that require a weed as an ingredient. You may make some of them only once but there are other recipes that you may wish to make again and again.

Oddly enough, the recipes you may wish to make most are the 'Failed Recipes'. They can be made using ANY ingredient that cannot be made or combined into a dish successfully... but why should you waste ingredients with shipping values? Use a Weed, a piece of Junk ore or rubbish to make the six 'Failed Dishes' required as ingredients in Ultimate Curry, Finest Curry and Elli Leaves. It is during the Winter Season especially that you may value the Junk Ore and rubbish that you obtain, as weeds cannot be found in Winter. I usually save 99 in my shelf for this purpose but it is good to know that supplies of Junk Ore are inexhaustible in ANY season...

Not that I wouldn't be willing to use the most valuable items, even Mythic Stone, to create Failed Dishes to use in Finest Curry designated for Skye, but why do that when a piece of Junk Ore or Weed will have the same result?

And it is all worth the effort...

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It is Monday night at 10.30 on the 19th of August in my first year in Forget-Me-Not Valley. My Pot was delivered this morning at 6.00 a.m. and I spent most of the morning making new dishes... among them all the Curries apart from those requiring White Grass, an herb that is available only in the Winter season. Unfortunately, Skye's Most Favourite gift happens to be 'Finest Curry', the one special curry that does contain White Grass. Even so, the other special curries do appeal to him greatly.

I lavished attention upon a very complicated dish known as the 'Ultimate Curry' and when it was completed, set it in a golden vessel. I barely could concentrate on my farm chores today as the Ultimate Curry was intended for Skye and I only can find him in the Valley at night.

I have made it a habit to 'drop in' casually at Vesta's farmhouse at 10.10 p.m. each night. I am pleasant to every one. I hope they cannot guess the real reason I have been making the visit. It enables me to switch my accessories from Teleport Stone to Love Bangle without wasting any time. I am able to place my gift for Skye in my hands as well, in preparation for each nightly encounter.

In the past, the best gifts I had for him were acceptable ones of jewelry or toiletries from the Excavation Site. Those gifts DID please him but his affection for me only increased at a slow rate.

Now tonight, my heart was pounding as I met him with Ultimate Curry in my hands. Oh beautiful moment! O moment of magic! What do you imagine his response to have been?

'What a wonderful woman you are!' Skye exclaimed. 'Thank you.'

Some may consider the difference between 500 points of AP and 300 points of AP to be fairly insignificant but for a woman in love, it means that I can win the heart of my beloved in almost half the time it would have taken previously. I may not be able to marry Skye before Winter in these circumstances, but I am confident that he will accept my Blue Feather, should I proffer it, before the Year's End.

Tomorrow, my house will be upgraded for the second time. Due to some unfortunate occurrences in the past (never experienced by me personally, thank God!), I feel it will be best if I place my cat and dog outside tonight. Gotz has been known in the past to wall up an unfortunate pet when performing the second house expansion! Ranchers who have experienced this terrible accident of fate either have been forced to live with the horrible view of their cat or dog struggling within the wall forever or never have seen the pet again at all. I don't know which is worse but I do know it is better to take the precaution perhaps of setting the two pets outside for a few hours.

My heart is singing as I walk home slowly, savouring Skye's response to my Ultimate Curry. Ultimate Curry is a lot of work to prepare and some of the steps can become rather tedious after awhile, but Skye is worth any effort.

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.