Technically edible, absolutely inadvisable
Game designers put an enormous amount of thought into making virtual food look edible. After all, we know that appetizing visuals affect how satisfying a meal feels, in real life, and (apparently) in code. Which makes it all the more fascinating when that same level of care and attention gets pointed in another direction entirely — whether for a quick Easter egg or a grim narrative beat. These objectively gross video game foods usually aren’t meant to be taken seriously, but let’s take a moment and give them the attention they deserve. From upsetting entrees to a wildly discouraging dessert, here’s a quick look at today’s specials. Bon appétit!
On the menu: Roasted mutant bug meat that heals you while also raising your radiation level.
Fallout has never been shy about shining a spotlight on the most disgusting aspects of survival. Radroach meat sums that point up quite nicely. Irradiated roaches are plentiful and cheap in Fallout’s post-apocalyptic world, and cooking radroach meat over a campfire turns one of the wasteland’s most common nuisance enemies into an actual source of nutrition…as long as you’re willing to accept a little radiation exposure on the side.
On the menu: A single killer tomato, baked into a cake, garnished with more tomato.
Across Final Fantasy 15, Ignis, the party’s resident chef, produces a full cookbook’s worth of mouth-watering meals — sushi, steaks, delicate desserts, we’re hungry just thinking of them. These dishes are usually cooked over a campfire using ingredients Prince Noctis and his pals gathered from the road, which is plausible enough. But then there’s, uh, something else on the table: A damp, spotty red cake made from a Killer Tomato, a real enemy from the game. Plated on the side, you’ll find even more tomato. This thing boosts your stats. And that’s the best thing we can say about that.
On the menu: Squirming alien creatures, eaten raw, straight out of the ground.
Sam Porter Bridges spends most of the first Death Stranding hauling packages across an otherworldly, completely ruined America. As he does, every so often, he pauses to dig up a wriggling little creature from the ground, and he eats it on the spot. Eating one restores stamina immediately, no cooking, no prepwork, just Sam popping it in his mouth and moving on. It’s convenient, if questionable. This isn’t gross in the sense of a terribly-prepared meal or a pixelated mess on a plate, but that squirming snack is a very unsettling detail that makes Sam’s world feel specifically, very deeply, alien.
On the menu: A recipe built from cicadas, scorpions, and something called a "munchygrub."
Mythra has an in-game reputation for terrible cooking. The Literally Killer Tart may be her masterpiece. To make it, you’ll need to gather two Everyman Cicadas, two Gregarious Scorpions, two Sand Upas, two Munchygrubs, and two Motley Cobras. If you’re keeping track, all of these ingredients are insects or reptiles. There’s nothing added to make this “tart” a pastry and not just a bowl of wriggling critters. Unfortunately, this is far from Mythra’s only crime against food. Her repertoire also includes a Pureed Sculpin Parfait (fish and lettuce, yum!) and a Spicy Scorpion Cookie. Eating the Literally Killer Tart does provide in-game buffs — including, somehow, the party’s trust in Mythra. Which raises some questions. Perhaps the bowl of insects tastes far, far better than it looks.
On the menu: A chunk of meat, embedded directly in a dungeon wall. Origin unknown.
Across multiple entries in the Castlevania series, players can find literal cuts of meat hidden inside castle walls. They’re destructible if you hit them with a weapon, and, good news (perhaps the only good news, here?): Eating the meat does restore health. But it is still a chunk of meat from the wall. No in-game text or character dialogue has ever addressed how or why meat exists embedded in stone architecture. But, as it turns out, unexplained dungeon meat may be a trope in video game lore…
On the menu: A whole roast chicken, just sitting on the ground.
Floor Chicken is a health pickup that restores 30 health points and drops from light sources players destroy mid-battle in Vampire Survivors. Quite the convenient mid-fight snack: Just a whole rotisserie chicken that’s come from nowhere. Which might sound delicious, kind of, in some contexts, but we have to remember that this is a full chicken that’s been on the floor, and we don’t know where it’s been. The Vampire Survivors fanbase considers this a direct reference to Castlevania’s Mysterious Wall Meat (and possibly an ode to even older games as well, like the food pickups in ‘80s arcade games, like Gauntlet). If you collect enough Floor Chickens in Vampire Survivors, fabulous news, you’ll unlock something called The Coop — an entire bonus stage populated by hostile, mutated chickens. Have fun with that!
On the menu: Scrambled eggs, which you can burn to a crisp or serve completely raw. The game doesn’t care which. (It probably should.)
