Talk:Guides/Crock Pot Dishes/@comment-50.71.87.189-20181225093613/@comment-67.181.219.230-20190810004240

tldr, buuuuut...

I'm almost with you on fish tacos, only because unlike fish sticks, you can use 2 twigs. Thing is, though, in core/RoG, I have to devote more time/resources to a fish than a frog leg, and you could just swap that out for the fish to have a statistically identical recipe, plus bunwiches keep slightly longer. Also, 2 carrots/berries/foliage/honey or any of a long list of other fillers, have at most half the hunger value of 1 fresh raw corn, meaning if you just eat the corn you can gain as much or more hunger by making fish sticks with the double health boost (and a saved twig) as a bonus. Further, the greatest value of fish is its use in high-health recipes, which is wasted on tacos. Since tacos are a mediocre fix for health, and a poor fix for sanity and a non-fix for hunger (unless using a roe which is only aquireable in SW where fish is way more available), plus costing 2 twigs, it becomes at most a highly situational recipe that even under these ideal circumstances has a negligible benefit.

As for pumpkin cookies and stuffed eggplant, these were addressed pretty accurately by the page author. For cookies, one more honey and you can make taffy, and cook and eat the pumpkin for an overall bonus of 5 health and a little over 15 hunger. And I find if I've got one honey I've got more, or can get more soon, at least by the time I am getting access to pumpkins, and if I'm starving can just eat the pumpkin THEN get the honey, aiding my hunger both long and short term.

For eggplant, the stuffed version gives 12.5 bonus hunger, at a cost of 17 health and 5 sanity. Trouble is, most vegetables can provide more benefit if eaten alone with the braised eggplant, and all can be used for meatballs. Further, since they are veggies, they can be used in much more reliably useful recipes (bunwich, muffins, pierogi). The only benefit of stuffed eggplant is the shelf life, but that's the same as fist full of jam, which is easier to make.

Which brings me to my next point. I assert that it is fist full of jam that is underreated. Just the ability to save dying berries makes it worth keeping in your repertoire. Plus, although if you're on the ball you can make berries last through winter, jam, if harvested, jammed, and refrigerated the day before winter, can last well past the last day. If you find yourself in a world with an excessive abundance of berry bushes, but are challenged with meat, jam can be a real time saver when winter approaches. Just run around the map and grab a ton of berries 5 days before winter and live off them cooked or jammed, then once they are just about to go stale eat the rest and go collect more berries, keeping you fed well past 5 days after winter when the berries will bear fruit again. This helped me immensely when I was a less experienced player and I still occasionally find it to be a useful way to pad my icebox in a way that saves me a little time that can be put to good use elsewhere. In fact, with a large enough cluster of berries (at your base, presumably) and enough sanity and uses of Applied Horticulture, one solid day of prep the day before winter could potentially feed you till the thaw. Of course, it's better to use monster meat to convert it to meatballs, so I'd still say jam is so situational to be junk as well, but it's something that may be worth keeping on your RADAR, and certainly more likely to be useful than stuffed eggplant/tacos/cookies. (Didn't say it was good, just underrated)

I would also argue that butter muffins should go on your list. A noob player would be well served by learning when to go for a nearby butterfly, especially in the early game before he has a crock pot. I find this very handy in SW playing Wolfgang, when I want to explore a big starting island with few berries, as it's good to get to sea with at least 100 hunger so I can hunt jellyfish with an axe and still break even on health. Plus the health gain lets me eat red mushrooms and offset the downside, or save wings for after I start killing jellyfish. It's also great in Hamlet for filler, saving some oincs at the grocer's. Once you have the knack for it, you can make muffins on the reg if you have the veggies (in the right season, of course). It's a nice health boost, a slight sanity boost, and bonus hunger even if using an eggplant or corn for the veggie, further rendering cookies/tacos obsolete.

And I'd disagree that kabobs and ratatouille are overrated and melonsicle is underrated. I think the world is in agreement that ratatouille and kabobs are shit and melonsicle def has its uses. It's like saying monster lasagna and wet goop are overrated. Or that meatballs are some undiscovered gem.

Finally, if you're still a new player, remembering all those extra recipes is more likely to create confusion through information overload than provide an advantage, and seasoned players are unlikely to need the trivial edge the junk recipes are very unlikely to offer in the first place. Unless you're playing Warly, I'd opine that you're pretty much always better off ignoring tacos/cookies/stuffed egg, and even he is better off finding variety elsewhere.