The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom provides us with plenty of new food, which means we get access to more recipes like pizza! But not everything that Link can make to eat makes sense, nor does it sound particularly appetizing if you were to try it in real life.
With every bizarre recipe you try and with every time Link dares to eat it, you just get further confirmation that Hyrule's Hero has a stomach made out of titanium. There, realistically, is no way he should be able to eat some of these absolutely bizarre (and slightly concerning) foods without some backlash. And yet, he's fine - he even gets hearts for it!
5 Frozen Meat Is Only The Beginning
Don't let the cold bother you and head up into the Gerudo Highlands at night or into the Hebra region with a fresh stock of meat. Dump it all on the ground and fire an arrow at it fused with an Ice Berry or White Chuchu Jelly and you can get yourself a whole swath of freshly frozen meat, ready to eat.
It won't restore as many hearts as if it were cooked, but it's too late now, it's already a meal ready for Link to break his teeth on. You can kind of understand eating raw meat - after all, it's still possible to do today with dishes like beef tartare.
It doesn't mean that they're good (at least, not to everyone), but it's a totally viable option in terms of food. Frozen meat, on the other hand, is not something that you would traditionally eat and in fact, it might even prove rather difficult to eat.
But if nothing else, Link is determined and if it's between the brink of death and frozen meat, you'd probably pick the frozen meat as well.
4 Dubious Food Is Just That, Dubious.
Dubious Food is a bit more than just dubious in its quality, in fact, it can be downright debilitating if you're anyone but Link as was shown in the Penn's stable quest Gourmets Gone Missing at Riverside Stable.
You can use perfectly fine ingredients, like Hylian Rice and Rock Salt, but as soon as you substitute the Prime Raw Meat for any sort of Monster Parts, Bugs, or inedible plants like Puffshrooms, you've made something that would take the average person off of their feet for a while.
Unless, of course, you're Link, in which case it just restores a little bit of health. It's a waste of ingredients, admittedly, but if you're running low on ingredients and you don't have the rupees to buy anything then you should, realistically, just cook a bunch of dubious food to hold you over.
Link won't be happy but at least he's alive, right? Eating a strange goopy mess of bug and monster paste that has been hastily thrown over a fire must be better than dying.
3 Rock Hard Food To Help Your Teeth Stay Strong
If presented with the challenge, Link can and will eat rocks and rock-like food though you do have to make it first. Whether you're cooking wood or literal gemstones, you can get some Rock Hard food out of the pot and present it to Link to eat.
Depending on the rarity or rupee cost of the thing you're cooking, though, it will restore a different amount of hearts.
Rock Hard food can either be the most expensive meal you've ever made or the cheapest. In a pinch, though, you can easily chop down some trees, pop down a Zonai Portable Pot and cook yourself up some wood to restore at least a few hearts.
Would this, realistically, be the worst thing to ever cross your digestive tract? Yes. You should not eat rocks in real life, but Link has a stomach of steel, and he'll probably be fine.
2 Monster Extract Is... Something Else
So if you traditionally can't eat monster parts raw and cooking them makes dubious food, then realistically, you shouldn't be able to cook with monster parts.
The kids in Hateno school during the Teach Me A Lesson 2 side quest would certainly agree on that part, at least. But you would all be wrong because so long as it's Monster Extract that you're using, you can make perfectly edible food with "monster parts."
Does it look natural? Absolutely not. Really, there are very few things, if anything, you should be eating that are that brilliant of a purple color.
Some of the recipes using Monster Extract seem fineat first, mostly by just using the Monster Extract as a seasoning like the Monster Rice Balls or Monster Curry. However, there is something uncanny about the Monster Soup... there's so little in it.
It takes Tabantha Wheat, Goat Butter, Fresh Milk, and Monster Extract which indicates that it's a thick cream soup that's primary flavor and the most outstanding ingredient is the Monster Extract. At least Monster Cake uses sugar as a flavoring agent!
1 What Is The Dark Clump?
Freshly introduced in Tears of the Kingdom is the Dark Clump, which is obtained from the Bargainer statues in the Depths and at Lookout Landing. This mysterious package will grant you a temporary resistance to Gloom, which is great if you're going up against Phantom Ganon or the Gloom Hands but just what is it?
It's mysterious and honestly, a little bit disturbing. The description for the item makes it clear that it's cold and seems to be pitch black, which leaves it up in the air as to what it actuallyis.
Is it like a temporary vaccine where you consume a portion of "dead" gloom to offer yourself temporary resistance before it passes through your system? It's hard to say, but it doesn't seem to be too harmful to Link.
You'd be right to not completely trust it, but you'd be a fool not to use it. Having at least a few gloom-resistant meals on hand, especially when you're going to clear out Korok Forest from the gloom is a must.