Food and drink are crucial aspects of any game with survival elements. The player not only has to survive hostile foes but also manage the needs of the body. The Fallout 76 players will get hungry and thirsty, and they will do so quite often, really. Going without incurs debilitating penalties. Hunger will deplete your overall health (which prevents fast traveling), and Thirst will put a cap on your AP, as though being over-encumbered wasn’t bad enough, right?

While most survival games let you forage for food, it doesn’t often go any deeper than eating vegetation or cooking up whatever meat you acquired, while drinking from the local river or water skins. Fallout 76 at least offers the player the freedom to whip up a good home cooked meal with a plethora of recipes.

That being said, some food items offer more than just keeping the hunger pains away, and will grant the player various buffs when eaten. Some will even make you more likable as a person by boosting Charisma...Somehow. I don’t question Fallout science anymore...

Food items in Fallout 76, unfortunately, can and will degrade and spoil over time, just like those leftovers in your fridge from last week, which can be annoying to some players. I would recommend taking the Good With Salt perk to ensure your foraged foodstuffs stick with you a little longer. Cooking it sooner rather than later is my advice. Raw meat does you no good just sitting in your inventory unless you don’t mind the chance of catching a disease from consuming raw meat.

We polled several members of the Fallout 76 community to get their opinions on what is good eats out there in Appalachia, and chose the best ones based on properties and usefulness in keeping your nutritional needs met out there.

That said, let’s talk about food.

10. Cranberry Relish

In these dark times, you eat the condiments as are. It really does be like that.

Relish is typically a condiment that you would use to add a little flavor to otherwise bland staple food, but it would seem in post-apocalyptic West Virginia there is just no time for such finery and it’s eaten on its own. A boiled mix of cranberries and gourds with some sugar for sweetness.

• Effects: +2 Rads, +60 HP, +10 Bonus XP, +200 AP
• Disease Chance: 0%
• Food: 20%

What's great about Cranberry Relish

• Offers a bonus to Experience gain for a time after consuming, 5% more than you would gain from Cranberry Cobbler.
• It will also restore 200 Action Points to the user, making it a handy side snack to keep on hand for those who like to go a little VATS happy.

How to Make It 

• The Recipe can be purchased from Antoine at the Whitespring Resort or obtained randomly as an event reward. I also found a copy of the recipe at the General’s Steakhouse.
• Boiled Water x2
• Cranberries x2 (I direct you to Mac’s Farm and the Aaronholt Homestead)
• Gourd x2 (retrieve the ones from Raleigh Clay’s Bunker to play for yourself)
• Sugar x2
• Wood x1

9. Cramburger

Sir, you are accused of being a burger with no bun...How do you plead?

Can you really call it a ‘burger’ if there is no bun involved? I personally feel the presence of a bun is important to make a claim for any kind of Burgerhood. That didn't stop Delbert Winters from calling it a Cramburger anyway when he developed this recipe. Of course, it may be because fresh bread is a bit of a luxury to have at the ready after the war.

• Effects: +10 Rads, +60 HP, +20 Carry Weight
• Food: 20%

What's great about the Cramburger

• The most notable reason to cook this up is the bonus to Carry Weight it grants the consumer. A player’s inventory can fill up quickly while out and about, even while wearing a backpack. When you reach capacity, you have a few options available to you. You can either lighten your load, pop a Buffout for a Strength boost, or enjoy a hearty Cramburger for another 20 points of weight.

How to Make It 

• The Recipe for Delbert’s Bunless Cramburger can be obtained at The General’s Steakhouse, located on a counter back in the kitchen, where one would expect to find a recipe, really. The recipe looks like a paper note, rather than the usual Recipe item texture.
• Boiled Water x1
• Cram x1
• Mirelurk Egg x2
• Tato x2
• Wood x1

8. Grilled Radstag

I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs

Radstag are a common sight in Appalachia, often in herds. While usually docile, they most times flee from the player. Sometimes, you come across some that don’t take kindly to Vault Dwellers trying to pick off their kin and go on the defensive. They are also a ready source of nutrition for the Vault Dweller far from home.

• Effects: +10 Rads, +60 HP, +20 Carry Weight
• Food: 20%

What's great about Grilled Radstag

• While it shares an effect with the Cramburger, what separates the two is you don’t need a recipe to make Grilled Radstag and can be cooked up by players at any Cooking Station so long as they have some wood to get the fire going, and some Radstag meat in their inventory. 
• What makes this more worthwhile than the Cramburger? Well, it depends on what you have on you at the time. You may have the items to make a Cramburger, but not Radstag, so this will boil down to personal preference to you as a player, and a good deal of circumstance.

How to Make It 

• Radstag Meat x1
• Wood x1

7. Canned Meat Stew

Where is Mama Dolce getting her meat, huh? WHERE IS SHE GETTING THE MEAT?!

The Fallout universe has always had an abundance of pre-packaged or canned goods left over from the good ol’ days. Some places in Fallout 76 like Mama Dolce’s Food Processing are still churning out the good eats...Somehow. Where are these long forsaken and automated factories getting their stock? I don’t think I want to know...But you can still enjoy a good canned stew from Mama Dolce, either way.

• Effects: +60 HP, +2 Rads, +5% XP for 1 hour
• Food: 20%
• Water: 15%

What's great about Food Name

• While the Experience gain is less than that of Cranberry based items, the effect lasts much longer at one hour. The effect does not stack.
• It will satisfy both hunger and thirst.

How to Make It

• Canned Meat Stew is obtained for participating in the event Feed the People, which appears daily on servers at the Mama Dolce’s Food Processing Plant near Morgantown.

6. Wild Blackberries

Even the fruit has weird growths and veins all over it...

Imagine for me if you will. You’re far from base, you ate your last box of Fancy Lads a while ago, and the game is telling you that you’re getting hungry...Again. This can really be a pickle in the Savage Divide where your best bet for a good meal is killing something, but that requires a campfire unless you intend to eat raw meat. Luckily, the Savage Divide is also crawling with Wild Blackberry. They are plentiful for those emergency situations and are a component in several other recipes, including disease cure and Blackberry Honey Crisps.

• Effects: 5 Rads
• Disease Chance: 2%
• Food: 5%

What's great about Wild Blackberries

• While they don’t garner much in the way of granting the players any buffs and effects, what they are is a good stable source of food. Blackberries can be planted back at your camp for later use.
• The measly 2% chance of catching a disease makes them a worry-free emergency ration (or as I call it, a Panic Snack). Grab as many as you can and fill that hunger meter.
• On top of being a respectable ration in a pinch, they are also used in a variety of crafting recipes the player may obtain.

How to Make It

• This is one of those items which isn’t crafted but found or cultivated by the player directly at their camp.
• The Savage Divide is where Blackberry is king.
• Several can be found at Beckwith Farm.

5. Milk

Without a decent refrigerator...Are we drinking milk warm?

Brahmin are relatively unnerving creatures if you were to ask me. They’ve grown a second head, and they are covered in sores and growths that make me think twice over making a meal out of them. Still, players can milk Brahmin for the humble cookies BFF, milk.

• Effects: Removes 25 Rads from the player
• Food: 3%
• Water: 8%

What's great about Milk

• Milk is delicious (even when it comes from heavily mutated livestock)
• Upon being consumed, it will remove 25 rads from the player, making it the poor man's alternative to radaway.
• Milk can be used to make a White Russian, assuming you’ve acquired the recipe.

How to Make It

• Milk is not crafted but gathered. All Brahmin the player comes across has a chance of giving the player milk when approached and the player sees an interaction prompt. A large concentration of Brahmin can be found in Flatwoods near Vault 76. You know the place, that first town the game directs you to.

4. Fried Fog Crawler

The Shrimp Cocktail has become aggressive

This entry on the list falls under “Good under certain conditions”. Fog Crawlers are mean abominations that look like a Kaiju version of a crawdad, fond of the murkier and damp locales. Your reward for sending them to their maker, like any other creature, is a nice big chunk of their meat, which when consumed offers a health regen and a damage buff while traversing foggy and rainy conditions.

• Effects: +45 HP over 25 seconds, Damage Resistance while in foggy and rainy conditions for about 30 minutes.
• Disease Chance: 0%
• Food: 15%

What's great about Fried Fog Crawler

• I mentioned that this falls under the category of “Good under certain conditions”. While food is food when that hunger bar diminishes, it’s when it’s raining or foggy that this lunch item really shines with its damage resistance buff. 

How to Make It 

• Raw Fog Crawler Meat
• Wood x1

3. Chicken Soup

The Recipe doesn’t explain where the noodles come from...Concerning, but delightful.

Good ol’ Chicken Noodle Soup. When we start to catch a case of the sniffles, this is the foodstuff of choice we all reach for. It’s easy to make, settles well on the stomach, and fills you with that soothing warmth to chase away the chills. In Fallout 76, it gives a nice nod to those traditions by granting the consumer a small buff to their disease resistance.

Effect: 60 HP, 5 Rads

• Food: 20%
• Water: 15%
• Uses: -10% Disease Chance

What's great about Chicken Noodle Soup

• The game loves to hoist diseases upon you at almost every opportunity. From stepping on unobserved floorboards of spikes to getting bit by a verminous local, diseases are bound to occur. That 10% boost to your immune system may not seem like much, but any chance to stave off another case of Rad Worms, I’ll take it.

How to Make It

• Wood x2
• Boiled Water x2
• Chicken Thigh x2 (Chickens are reportedly found across the river from the Overseer’s Camp)

2. Scorchbeast Mixed Meat Stew

Covering all the meats most people would be too afraid to try

We have had to put up with them, we’ve killed them, and now we get to eat them. The Scorchbeast, to my knowledge, drops the largest amounts of food items of any creature I’ve ever encountered in the game. While you could just cook and eat each piece by itself, the real treasure is cooking it all up into a nice, tasty stew. The real trick is getting all the meats to drop before the others go off in your backpack. I probably wouldn’t eat this in real life...I’ve never eaten lung, and I’m not keen to broaden my culinary tastes quite that much...

What's great about Scorchbeast Mixed Meat Stew

• It’s one of those food items that replenish both hunger and thirst.
• Consuming the stew heals for a crazy amount, which is respectable for an item that takes so many items to make.
• The stew warrants four total boosts to your stats.

How to Make It

• Boiled Water x2
• Pepper x1
• Scorchbeast Brain x1
• Scorchbeast Heart x1
• Scorchbeast Liver x1
• Scorchbeast Lung x1
• Scorchbeast Meat x1
• Wood x1

1. Mothman Egg Omelette

It looks...Crunchy…Maybe with a bit of salt?

Found in massive clusters around a statue to the Big M himself in the town of Point Pleasant, Mothman Eggs look more like the titular cryptids blazing red eyes more than they do an egg, making you wonder what strange and profane things are happening inside it as the creature inside incubates. You might also be wondering how they taste, hence the game gives us the option of making omelets out of them.

• Effects: +5 Rads, +45 HP, +2 Charisma
• Disease Chance: 0%
• Food: 15%

What's great about Mothman Egg Omelettes

• They spawn in abundance, and with a one-to-one ratio to craft, one-stop off at Point Pleasant will see you set up with food for at least one play session.
• The Omelettes...somehow...Incur a bonus to Charisma when eaten, which can be helpful when bartering with Vendor Bots at your friendly neighborhood train station to get a better price.

How to Make It 

• Mothman Egg x1
• Wood x1

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