The ‘Stardew Valley Cookbook’ Brings the Video Game’s Cozy Recipes to Life

There are few video games that have developed the kind of loyal, deeply devoted fan base of Stardew Valley. Released in 2016 by ConcernedApe, the cozy farm simulator game is widely considered to be among the best in that genre, and players spend countless hours growing vegetables, raising cows and sheep, fishing for rare specimens, mining minerals, and generally tending their in-game farms. Considering that both raising food and cooking are such a big part of the game, it’s perhaps not surprising that Stardew Valley, which boasts 74 distinct recipes, now has a cookbook of its own.

Co-written by Ryan J. Novak and Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone, The Stardew Valley Cookbook hits shelves on May 14, complete with recipes for the game’s most iconic dishes, like Carp Surprise and a beautifully decorated, melon-spiked Pink Cake. The recipes were developed by Susan Vu, a recipe developer who’s created imaginary dishes in The Official Bridgerton Guide to Entertaining and Exquisite Exandria: The Official Cookbook of Critical Role.

Ahead of the book’s release, Eater sat down to talk with Barone and Vu about the role of cooking in Stardew Valley, why the game’s recipes have inspired such devoted fans, and which of its imaginary foods were the most fun — and challenging — to create.

Why did you want to create a cookbook based on Stardew Valley?

Eric Barone: Cooking has always been part of the game. And because it’s a homey, country life simulator, I always felt that a cookbook felt the theme and the vibe: It just makes sense to bring the domestic quality of the game into the real world. There’s also some really strange dishes in the game, and I thought it would be very funny and fascinating to have a real-life counterpart. When people make these dishes, I want them to feel like they’re actually living in Stardew Valley.

The game’s recipes — and the cookbook’s — are all pescetarian. Was that intentional from the start?

EB: In very early versions, I did have meat and butchery in the game, but I changed that at some point in development. It was maybe a little too uncomfortable for players to be raising these animals and slaughtering them; it didn’t fit the relaxed vibe. You’re like, naming the animals and taking care of them, so I think it would’ve been a little too real. So we landed on a pescatarian game, where you can eat what you can farm and fish, and I don’t really regret that.

What was it like to take imaginary dishes and turn them into real food?

Susan Vu: In the game, you only get a tiny pixelated photo of each dish and a list of the ingredients, so I had this spreadsheet going where I was able to break down all that information and keep it organized. When I got to the ones that were a little bit more zany, it was a little more challenging. We wanted the recipes to be true to the game, but also make it possible for people to actually recreate this food. Like, sure, you can technically find periwinkles (read: snails) to recreate the Strange Bun in theory, but it’s not exactly easy. So we pivoted to something seafood related, and it became a really delicious recipe. I had to nail the iconic shape of the strange bun, which took three or four tries, and then we filled it with this delicious lobster salad that replicates the Strange Bun’s pink color that you see in the game.

Then, with the Void Mayonnaise, I just went with a classic mayonnaise tinted gray with a little bit of charcoal. And the thing is, the mayonnaise would be just as delicious without the charcoal, but it gives it the iconic black color. I did a big happy dance in my kitchen at 4 a.m. when I figured that out. The most important thing was to really nail the visuals, because that was the only real experience that fans have with these dishes.

So many of these dishes were total inventions. Did they come to life how you expected?

EB: There’s a little magic in Stardew Valley, but the dishes in the game mostly match the foods in the real world — hashbrowns, eggs, etc. I thought that the “strange” foods would be the most interesting to adapt for a cookbook. Everyone knows how to fry an egg, but nobody’s ever made seafoam pudding before. The most important thing was that the recipes had to be tasty.

SV: Eric’s wonderful life partner cooked a lot of the recipes as I was developing them. She made the stuffing and the cranberry drink, and was giving me real-time feedback. It was fun to have someone who lived and breathed the game actually cook the recipes. I was excited when she made the food and enjoyed it.

In terms of developing the recipes, it seems like you had to forage for ingredients in real life almost as intensively as you do in the game. What was that like?

SV: There was a moment when I was developing the Carp Surprise recipe where I was like, “is the surprise that it’s not carp?” Because I couldn’t find carp for the life of me. I ate it growing up, and you could usually find whole carp at Asian grocery stores. But when I went looking for it to create this recipe, it was nowhere. I drove to the Chinese grocery store, the Korean grocery store, the Vietnamese grocery store, and they all looked at me like I was crazy. I was finally able to get it shipped in from New York, but it was a struggle. I was able to test the recipe with carp, but I also tested it with other fish, and it totally works with striped bass or any other kind of white fish. We eventually went with a parchment-wrapped carp, so it truly is a surprise when you open up the little pouch.

Crafting is a common element in video games, but the cooking and gardening in Stardew Valley are especially revered by fans. Why do you think that is?

EB: I think people like the role-play of going from being a person who’s living in the big city and working in a cubicle, probably eating a lot of takeout or fast food, and then moving to the countryside to become a farmer. People enjoy the fantasy of being a farmer and eating home-cooked food. It’s also about connection in the game — a lot of the recipes you learn by befriending other characters, and that ties the whole thing together.

SV: They did such a fun job with the visuals of the game, so when you’re playing, you see each dish and think about what it would be like in real life. I went down a rabbit hole of seeing what fans had created themselves, and it was incredible how they took the recipes that they saw, a loose list of ingredients, and turned it into food.