First, I eat any and all food contained inside plastic bottles and cans so that I can reuse the containers.
After supplies dwindle, I switch to steady diet of cooked meat chunks, bones, scrambled eggs and clean water.
Early: Anything I recognize will rot. So fresh vegetables & fruits; anything ‘frozen’, if I can cook it I prioritize eating that (pizzas, burritos); sandwiches (because bread goes bad pretty fast). I drink OJ, Fruit Juices, and anything else that comes in a plastic bottle and goes bad. If I was forced to kill an animal (I usually just avoid them if possible) I’ll cook and eat it ASAP.
Mid-Game: As the other stuff has rotted, this begins my ‘powder phase’ of play. I usually carry pockets full (seriously, I dump everything out of the ‘sm. cardboard box’ it comes in, into my pockets as it takes up less room) of things like oats, sugar, cornmeal, etc. So I’m often making and eating ‘Deluxe Outmeal’ or Biscuits. I’ll be usually drinking Protein Shakes/Drinks; coffee & tea because those are powdered and easily carried.
Late Game: Pretty much same as Mid-Game, though I’ll have access to an RV kitchen unit, FOODCO thing, all that stuff. So by then I’m trying to use up all the weird crap I’ve hoarded all this time. My cooking skill is usually up there, so I have access to a lot of recipes but often not all the ingredients. I’m basically living out of an armored food truck at this point.
On my mondo-mutant Dustin I always make the best food I can! Sausage, soups, hamburgers and all that biz. Because:
A) Mosquito Tacos are hillarious
and
B) Saprovore is the best trait. Eat great, even late!
Early: Butcher the NPC in the evac shelter and subsist on them for a bit, followed by fruits, vegetables, and bread. If desperate, canned food and soda.
Mid: Smoked and cooked meat from the wolves, coyotes, and moose that I bludgeon. If I find the materials, meat sandwiches, meat pie, and boiled noodles.
Late: This is where my character gets spoiled. Sausage, cereal, vegetable and meat soup, spaghetti al pesto, as well as manwiches and slob sandwiches if I find wandering NPCs. If I still have any irradiated fruits/vegetables or canned food left, I eat it, as I am self-sufficient.
Generally speaking, I go raid the local 4 military bases and bunkers and dine on MREs for the rest of my constipated life.
And drink practically anything that won’t make me vomit said Half-digested MREs
Once I’m capable, I tend to treat grocery stores with the same priority as gun stores. Generally speaking, my characters eat a constantly-changing menu of (relatively) gourmet meals on a regular basis.
For example, my last post-woodcutting feast was meat pie, cornbread, and fish soup, accompanied by a glass of pinot noir and a double shot of single-malt whiskey with a bonghit and a cigarette for dessert. Then it’s time to toddle off to bed to recuperate while feeling 8D, living in post-apocalyptic luxury.
Sigged.
Anyway, my menu for my latest survivor, Les Stroud the Survivalist:
Early Game: I ate anything I could find, but I ran at the spoiling goodies first. OJ, burritos, you name it. Smashing vending machines works well here.
Mid-Game: Searching for a town, I generally just snacked on whatever I found, although in mid-spring after that fateful Thursday lots of stuff was rotten and sucky. Burritos still work well here, but I started to rely on lots and lots of MRE’s. Made some s’mores one time, too.
Late-Game: After reading Italian cooking books and stuff, I started making soup, spaghetti al pesto, all that stuff. Great eats, Alton. Not just Good Eats. Great Eats.
The whole time, I had poptarts. Lots and lots of poptarts.
so get dead cat and 2 pop tarts and you have nyan cat
Same as others in this thread I tend to wolf down everything perishable in the early game because it really dills my pickle (so to speak) to see good food go rotten.
Midgame I’m mostly eating cooked meat and coffee, with an extra side of cooked veggies if I feel like venturing into triffid territory for a spell or rooting through the forests.
After that depends on what ‘base’ I have. My current character lives in her altered Humvee, Frank(enstein’s monster) and as such I really only have room for oatmeal, seasoned salt, sugars, that kind of stuff. As such I usually just make meat pies out of the fresher meats and jerky out of the stuff that’s gone rotten out of negligence, ditto with fruit jam and leather.
My characters that have their own expansive, solar powered houses, however, have cupboards and fridges overflowing with everything I can loot from the towns, in order to make whatever full course meals their little hearts desire.
It’s actually sort of fun imagining them finally enjoying a little of life’s pleasures.
Pretty much whatever I can manage to find. Bags of chips, cans of beans and ravioli, cooked chunks of meat from various animals I can manage to kill and butcher. Oh, and lots of toilet water. Lots and lots of toilet water, normally boiled over an open flame in a frying pan.
Early game: cooked meat, canned soup, soda
Mid game: canned meat (which I canned earlier), cooked meat, whatever fruits/vegetables I can find
Late game: I always die before I get here
Update to my longest-running survivor of four days (so sad).
EGGS, RAW.
EGGS, RAW.
Veggies ALSO RAW.
MY OWN TEARS, AS THESE ALL TASTE LIKE NEGATIVE MORALE.
Then I figure out a firestarter and salt my cooked meat with earlier’s tears (once I stop crying enough to sit still and cook.)
I have a mushroom pile that I am absolutely terrified to touch because there are somehow roughly-equal quantities of all three types in there and so I can’t take a safe guess which is what.
COME ON PTH GET BACK INTO IT
YOU’LL MAKE IT I BELIEVE IN YOU MAN
BELIIIIEEEVVVEEE!!!1
if only you could mash those up into some kind of Apocalypse Omelette, that’d solve all your problems!
Meanwhile I’m sitting in a sleeping bag, scoffing down handfuls of cornflakes whilst I read a recipe book
The sad part is, I have a small stack of toaster pastries… and wheat allergies.
I’d almost rather risk the mushroom roulette than try those. I NEED TO BE ABLE TO BUILD.
…do mushrooms ever rot in game? This is important as phase two of my diet will either be ‘more meat’, or ‘wow, actual variety’.
Anyone abuse the gourmet trait and high cuisine to accelerate skill gain? (I remember, someone posting about such a build sometime ago). I tried it a couple of times but I can never set up a decent base before I die to wolves, bears, and land mines.
Ever since I started playing level 50 spawn games, it’s been meat, royal jelly, and wild fruits,
clean water from labs and whatever I find in zombie pockets.
But once I break through the lines and make it into town, it will be all deluxe omlettes and eggs! Cornmeal and pancakes!
[quote=“Pthalocy, post:35, topic:5839”]The sad part is, I have a small stack of toaster pastries… and wheat allergies.
I’d almost rather risk the mushroom roulette than try those. I NEED TO BE ABLE TO BUILD.
…do mushrooms ever rot in game? This is important as phase two of my diet will either be ‘more meat’, or ‘wow, actual variety’.[/quote]
They don’t, IIRC, and you’ll see whether they’re safe (examine one) as you level up Survival. Sorry Carlos wasn’t able to prevent the Cataclysm.
OH WOW I did not know mushie identification had been tied to survival skills now! YESSSs. That’s super nice, as is their not-rotting-ness. Makes sense since I basically keep them in a cool dry place on dirt, aka my ramshackle makeshift survivor shelter. (shelter not included).
I usually eat cooked meat, I just eat everything that moves and gives chunks of meat (dogs, wolves, couguars, bears, mooses, snakes, coyotes, giant flies etc…) .
I mainly drink clean water, but I recently found out that kompot is a great drink to quench thirst even though it seems to have the same quench rate of clean water.