What do you think are the most underwhelming/bad crockpot dishes, and how would you buff them?

[Maxil20]

This post mainly stems from a message in a thread a week back or so from a reply to my post from @Mysterious box, talking about how all crockpot foods besides wet goop/monster lasagna should have some merit of versatility from them. I've thought about it a bit since and I figured making a post to see what other's think would be a good idea.

It's no shock that in DST there are crockpot dishes that are (way) better than others. While I do think there are certainly a reasonable chunk you can make and are in fact quite good, there are certainly some that underwhelming. It's interesting that Klei knows that, as they have recently buffed a decent amount of crockpot dishes in this update. For those who are not aware, the buffs are as follows:
 

Spoiler

Unagi 25 Hunger -> 37.5
Barnacle Nigiri 5 Sanity -> 15
Barnacle Linguine 10 Health -> 30
Fig-Stuffed Trunk 56.25 Hunger -> 150 0 Sanity -> 15 Spoils in 10 days -> 15
Figkabab 25 Hunger -> 37.5 15 Sanity -> 5
Figgy Frogwich 8 Health -> 20 18.75 Hunger -> 25 10 Sanity -> 5

In my opinion, this is a good step in the right direction. I feel talking about the dishes we as a community find underwhelming will hopefully bring more time of them into the spotlight, especially now that the polar bearger bin exists as the definitive way to carry crockpot foods around long term.

I'll share 3 dishes that I find could be improved. Those dishes are Pumpkin Cookies, Fish Tacos, and Fruit medley.

Pumpkin Cookies
-This dish suffers from the recipe by design. In order to make pumpkin cookies, you will at minimum need 2 honey and 1 pumpkin. The problem is taffy only takes 3 honey, gives an identical amount of sanity, lasts longer, and the health penalty can be substituted for a variety of factors, most notably Eating the cooked pumpkin you just saved gives you 8 health and the same amount of hunger as the cookies.
-A particularly creative way I have seen this dish suggest getting buffed is if it used the underutilized batch system, which is currently only used for jellybeans: Whenever the recipe is cooked, you will get 2 cookies per bake. This alone would pretty much solve the problem with the dish, as each "batch" would give 30 sanity and 75 hunger, in addition to the fact this makes the recipe an interesting choice to use in a team scenario as it's easier to split the cookies around for teammates when it comes to restoration needs.
Fish Tacos
-In 99 out of 100 cases, fulfilling the needs of this dish also means you can fulfill the needs of fishsticks, a dish that restores twice the health, lasts almost twice as long (10 days vs. 6) and restores the same hunger/sanity as the tacos.
-Tacos could be reworked to be the hunger alternative of fish-only foods: They could grant 75-112.5 hunger in exchange for not as much health from something like fishsticks. Adjusting the spoilage time of this dish to match fishsticks could also be a good choice to make.
Fruit Medley (Fun fact: this in my opinion is the worst dish in the game)
-I can't think of a Single good thing to say about medley. It's difficult to make without delving into more exotic fruits, last less than half of the time the "weaker" dish below it does (fist full of jam lasts 15 days, medley lasts 6), is Debatably worse statwise than the jam (exchanging hunger for a very nominal health boost while being substantially harder to make), and because both it and jam have the exact same priority, Fulfilling the needs of medley will also have a chance to result in jam anyway, unless you specifically use something that can't make jam but medley can accept (Ex: jam can't accept twigs, but medley does.)
-Medley needs a higher priority (literally anything higher than 0 so it's impossible to make jam if you can fulfill this, for reference this is how dishes like meatballs and stew don't fulfill the same requirements), and noticeably stronger stats (perhaps noticeably more hunger to have an alright veggie-based dish alternative, as there are many decent veggie dishes for sanity/health, but not so much for hunger.

Those are my examples. Please share dishes you think are bad and how you would improve them in the comments! Hopefully this results in some crockpot buffs for the next beta as well, as it seems easy enough to do and would be a nice QOL to dishes that the community thinks are under the curve.

[Wormboi]

Sea food gumbo: I think masked koopa talked about this, but this dish has so many other things that can take its priority (I.E fish sticks, wosbter bisque, surf' n' turf ect) not only that you have to get eels to make what is basically a more expensive pierogi.

Buff for it: make it not overlap as much with other foods and give the 20 sanity into hunger to make it better.

[HondorDrache]

For dishes that are expensive in terms of ingredients, various useful temporary effects could be added; the game already has similar recipes: Soothing Tea, Jellybeans, Mushy Cake...
For example:
Taffy - temporary increase in sanity gained,
Fruit Medley -  could temporarily remove the filter from low sanity,
Fish Tacos - temporarily reduces the time it takes for fish in the pond to get hooked.
with such enhancements, it would make sense to cook dishes that are not advantageous in terms of characteristics and ingredients, which also affected characters like Wurt, who have no particular need to eat dishes from crock pot.

[Evelo]

Stuffed Eggplant: 5 Sanity > 15 Sanity
Spicy Chilli & Guacamole: 0 Sanity > 15 Sanity
Honey Nuggets: 37.5 Hunger > 20 Hunger; 10 Sanity > 33 Sanity
Sea Food Gumbo: Lower Meat attributions to most fish so you can make this instead of Surf n' Turf using 4 Wobsters, also remove Eel requirement.
 

[Swiyss]

I like the fact that they're just better than eating the raw ingredients. That's already better for me.

I like to decorate every dish, so I'm just randomly in a situation where I need hp, and I got specific ingredients to make certain dishes. Same for sanity or hunger.

Thinking "wait I can make turkey dinner" because I randomly killed a turkey is already a mechanic that is great. I don't think Klei needs to change anything besides what they already changed. figgy frogwich was reeally underwhelming.

[Wormboi]

Just thinking what do people think about the dairy dishes? (waffles, ice cream, Ect)

[Jimothywastaken]

5 minutes ago, Wormboi said:

Just thinking what do people think about the dairy dishes? (waffles ice cream Ect)

waffles are butter only which is really the only problem with them if i could make waffles with milky whites then i would since 60 health is really nice
(maybe also make them last longer like 10 days idk) 

ice cream would be niche but nice when available if it lasted forever in an ice box

wobster dinner being a butter dish does make sense but it should probably be a near full heal due to requiring it (maybe 120 health??)

crepes are fine i think maybe a sanity buff if i have to give them something as 15 sanity feels really low for a dish of its prestige

the milk made hat
the best i got is making it ""repairable"" with electric milk 

[Wormboi]

3 minutes ago, Jimothywastaken said:

the milk made hat
the best i got is making it ""repairable"" with electric milk 

Milk made hat is a weird food item like, the things you need for it are hard to get and gives you 4 hunger over 4 minutes which isnt worth it.

[chirsg]

At times, it's hard to justify surf n turf. I made a whole entire fortress to make it viable, yet the production is super weak. You could character switch in order to farm up surf n turf, but you're character switching at that point. Takes away the fun of it.

Even if you went shipwrecked mode and decided to give wobsters a value of 2 fish, 0 meat so you could use 1 wob and 3 monster meat for surf and turf, you're only really getting around 5 surf n turfs per day, whereas pierogi, you can make as many as your heart desires as one character. Just dedicate a cookout session and you could fill an entire bundle wrap.

 

When I think about it, ease of ingredient acquisition is often more important than raw stats. Surf and turf is pretty much a superior dish to pierogi in stats, however, getting the ingredients you need is another kettle of fish. pun. 
My bearger bin after year 1 will either be filled with honey hams or honey nuggets because of how easy each dish is to make, and lately, I've been trying to fit pierogi in to shore up the times I decide to do unarmored Wigfrid tanking.

 

Dishes and the value of them can be quantified in how much effort it takes to get the ingredients. But things like the barnacle dishes, tacos and fig dishes are kind of insulting lmao. Not only are they outclassed, but the ingredients are far too much effort to get.

 

I think that even if you gave barnacle dishes each 60 hp, 33 sanity and 75 hunger respectively, the fact you need to go at the seaweeds with a razor in the middle of nowhere out o the way, it still wouldn't be so great.

There's some hope for fish tacos imo. People farm and enjoy it. I don't think there's a reason why it's stats should be so inferior to fishsticks. I think someone on the dev team REALLY likes fish sticks and hates fish tacos. 

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Spoiler

Figgy Frogwich 8 Health -> 20 18.75 Hunger -> 25 10 Sanity -> 5

 

the fig dishes getting nerfs in sanity was a bad choice imo, but I don't care enough to make a big fuss of it. They're a pretty dish and just fun if you decide to do it. 

[zhangsheng]

All butter dishes are inconspicuous. Not only considering the rarity of butter. You should know that eating butter raw can restore 40 health and 25 satiety, as well as a super long shelf life, which can already meet the vast majority of needs. However, although butter cuisine has more three-dimensional recovery, it ultimately requires other materials and has a short shelf life, making it highly substitutable.
So eating butter raw is better, and butter cuisine is not very eye-catching.

[Evelo]

56 minutes ago, chirsg said:

At times, it's hard to justify surf n turf. I made a whole entire fortress to make it viable,

Step 1: Base near 2 Wobster dens
Step 2: Go fishing every night
Step 3: Put 3 Wobsters and a Twig into a crockpot boom Surf n' Turf.
Biggest justification for this food dish imo is playing Wigfrid and need sanity, or playing Wickerbottom in general. Otherwise yea, not too viable imo.

[chirsg]

7 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Step 1: Base near 2 Wobster dens
Step 2: Go fishing every night
Step 3: Put 3 Wobsters and a Twig into a crockpot boom Surf n' Turf.
Biggest justification for this food dish imo is playing Wigfrid and need sanity, or playing Wickerbottom in general. Otherwise yea, not too viable imo.

3 WOBSTERS? AY DIOS MIO

That's so many wobsters, dude. 1 wobster + 1 ice + 2 twigs gives you 60 hp, but 3???????????/

Did you not understand my argument? Even if you have 1 wobster being worth 2 fish, it still might not be worth it over pierogis, but 3 wobsters???? That's mindblowing. I'm thunderstruck.

 

[Evelo]

5 minutes ago, chirsg said:

 

That's so many wobsters, dude. 1 wobster + 1 ice + 2 twigs gives you 60 hp, but 3???????????/

Did you not understand my argument? Even if you have 1 wobster being worth 2 fish, it still might not be worth it over pierogis, but 3 wobsters???? That's mindblowing. I'm thunderstruck.

 

Well again, it's for sanity not health.

15 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Biggest justification for this food dish imo is playing Wigfrid and need sanity, or playing Wickerbottom in general. Otherwise yea, not too viable imo.

 

[chirsg]

8 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Well again, it's for sanity not health.

 

taffy and/or banana daiquiri. it's infinitely easier to farm a lot of either of them. Wobsters aren't optimal. They are sub optimal. And using 3? 3? 3? 3? 3?

I'm about to lose my mind. 3???????

 

 

That's 3. That's insane to me.

1 wobster basically has the value of 60 hp and what, 15 sanity when made into bisque, right? you reduce that value to 20 hp and 11 sanity for each individual wobster if you choose to make it into a surf and turf using 3 wobsters. I don't know. That's just not a good use of resources. That's a very bad use of resources. I mourn the resources

[GetNerfedOn]

Fistfull of Jam providing more hunger than its constituent parts or at least 15 sanity or 10 hp would be nice.

Since spiralled tubers provide sanity Kabobs could also provide a cheap sanity option.

Stuffed Eggplant could provide a substantial heal given Eggplant itself heals 20 when cooked; i'd say 30 hp.

5 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Fruit Medley (Fun fact: this in my opinion is the worst dish in the game)

While I agree with the sentiment I'd argue Guacamole is worse than Fruit medley; you can at least stumble into making Fruit medley while Guacamole... well, you'd only make it if your sense of humor led you to it really; it's otherwise taxing to amass Moleworms just for the purpose and your cactus flesh and stone fruit are better spent in other recipes or being cooked or eaten. And while the recipe is by far the most hilarious i want it to be at least more accessible with a recipe of 2 stone fruit, 1 onion and 1 tomato, along with a mild sanity raise of 15.

[reddocc]

Mandrake soup should give sanity and remove health penalizations it's almost never worth it to make, I'm being serious

[Ohan]

There r too many bad dishes. Listing them all would take too long lol. 

Cooking needs a top to bottom comprehensive look over.

Rebalancing values of raw/cooked ingredients, values and recipes of crockpot dishes, special effects of dishes like the temp increase/decrease, banana bush nerf, new vegan dishes, etc… 

..maybe after the skill tree 2.0 refreshes in 8 years 

[Evelo]

4 hours ago, chirsg said:

That's 3. That's insane to me.

1 wobster basically has the value of 60 hp and what, 15 sanity when made into bisque, right? you reduce that value to 20 hp and 11 sanity for each individual wobster if you choose to make it into a surf and turf using 3 wobsters. I don't know. That's just not a good use of resources. That's a very bad use of resources. I mourn the resources

Okay, we can play differently. To each their own. I find it pretty good for Wigfrid and Wicker for sanity. I mostly make the bisque though. Most characters that aren't wigfrid I just make Salsa Fresca, Potato Puree, Melonsicles, and Vegetable Stinger for sanity but Wigfrid is the exception for... clearly obvious reasons. I don't like dealing with the inconsistencies of bee boxes (Wormwood PTSD). Health is never really an issue, so most foods are for sanity or hunger. In which case yea, 3 wobsters for 33 sanity for a meat dish is pretty good given how stupid easy it is to mass acquire Wobsters.

[A random guy]

4 hours ago, Ohan said:

There r too many bad dishes. Listing them all would take too long lol. 

Cooking needs a top to bottom comprehensive look over.

Rebalancing values of raw/cooked ingredients, values and recipes of crockpot dishes, special effects of dishes like the temp increase/decrease, banana bush nerf, new vegan dishes, etc… 

..maybe after the skill tree 2.0 refreshes in 8 years 

Maybe a nerf to overpowered dishes like meatballs would be nice

its an easy dish for 67 hunger but its too easy that it really makes a lot of other dishes not worth it

[grm9]

1 minute ago, A random guy said:

Maybe a nerf to overpowered dishes like meatballs would be nice

its an easy dish for 67 hunger but its too easy that it really makes a lot of other dishes not worth it

meatballs suck and it's usually better to eat ingredients cooked unless you waste a lot of time on getting ice, people only thought that they were good during 2015 or so

[Wormboi]

3 minutes ago, A random guy said:

Maybe a nerf to overpowered dishes like meatballs would be nice

what about meaty stew and peirogis?

[grm9]

Just now, Wormboi said:

what about meaty stew and peirogis?

pierogies're already bad because there're better ways to heal and not need to heal e.g. beefalo

3 hours ago, Ohan said:

banana bush nerf

why do people always want to nerf suboptimal things

[Theukon-dos]

Y'all do realize you can make surf n' turf with fish morsels, right? 3 of them and a meat/monster meat is enough to make it. It's the single best fish recipe in the game and you don't even need to go sailing for it.

[gaymime]

23 hours ago, Jimothywastaken said:

waffles are butter only which is really the only problem with them if i could make waffles with milky whites then i would since 60 health is really nice
(maybe also make them last longer like 10 days idk) 

ice cream would be niche but nice when available if it lasted forever in an ice box

wobster dinner being a butter dish does make sense but it should probably be a near full heal due to requiring it (maybe 120 health??)

crepes are fine i think maybe a sanity buff if i have to give them something as 15 sanity feels really low for a dish of its prestige

the milk made hat
the best i got is making it ""repairable"" with electric milk 

forever icecream seems a bit outside of the way the game is "meant" to be played but also would 100% get me to start making icecream again after all these years