This post was created as part of

my activities with NEXON PEAK.

There's one food in Mabinogi Mobile that I want to try making myself. Why just one, when the game has so many dishes to choose from? Well, most of them are foods I already know. Some look expensive, of course, and others are things I've never tried, but when it comes to something I absolutely have to taste, I keep coming back to the same dish. Of the 55 dishes you can make at any time, the one I want to eat is

the Traveler's Snack. The Traveler's Snack is really easy to make in the game, too: as long as you have the ingredients, you don't even need a fire. I think it's the only dish out of all of them that you can make without one, so you can put it together anytime, anywhere. My friend and I have our own name for the Traveler's Snack: a yukhoe rice ball. Although, now that I think about it, there's no rice in it. It's made with nothing but eggs and meat, so... what should I call it? It's just yukhoe, Korean beef tartare, but you can carry it around easily... hmm. Let's just call it a yukhoe ball.

With the Traveler's Snack topping my list of foods to try in Mabinogi Mobile—and that being a yukhoe ball—I started wondering what other dishes there might be. I even looked through the food you can buy with gold under Cash Shop - Items, but those were all familiar foods, too.

There are foods you can get through events, too, like Caitin's Chocolate Bonbons from Valentine's Day, or the Harvest Festival Songpyeon and Chewy Mushroom Pancakes from Chuseok. But those aren't particularly unusual foods in real life, either, which got me thinking: what if there were foods that could only exist in the world of Erinn? Something like Butterbeer from the Harry Potter series, perhaps. Of course, it couldn't feel too out of place or take things too far, and creating something new while striking that balance really isn't easy.

Oh, there actually are foods unique to Erinn besides the Traveler's Snack: Grand Feast: Boeuf Bourguignon of the Undying Flame and Grand Feast: Fairy Floss of the Fierce Wind (otherwise known as cotton candy). They have good effects, but getting the ingredients and making them takes some work, so people tend to share them with a group. Players who focus on life skills sometimes go for the cotton candy + black tea combination before crafting, since the effects go beyond the attack power that matters in combat: they also include increased life skill EXP, faster movement outside combat, and a movement speed boost after successful gathering. These are certainly foods unique to Erinn, but in the pictures, they look like a steak served on fire and cotton candy, which is why I left them out earlier.

Still, if I had to pick 2 more, I'd go with Spicy Bell Pepper Stew and Iced Strawberry Juice. Spicy Bell Pepper Stew makes the list because it leaves me wondering: shouldn't that have potatoes in it rather than rice? Iced Strawberry Juice is a common enough drink, but Tieve makes it in Colhen, where it's a local favorite—or should I say a regional specialty? If that's the case, perhaps there's something special about the strawberries grown and available there. With that in mind, I think it would be fun to see this Colhen specialty served at an in-person event, if there ever is one.

After narrowing everything down, I've ended up with 4 foods! The Traveler's Snack, Colhen's specialty Iced Strawberry Juice, Grand Feast: Boeuf Bourguignon of the Undying Flame, and Grand Feast: Fairy Floss of the Fierce Wind. Of those, the Traveler's Snack is the one I want to make and try myself—I do love yukhoe, after all. The Iced Strawberry Juice, meanwhile, got my imagination going. With an icy valley nearby, Colhen is pretty cold, so perhaps 코너 developed a strawberry variety suited to the weather in both Colhen and the valley, one that only 코너 can grow.

Or perhaps the strawberries are imported, since there's a dock! Then why are they in Emain Macha? Because it's a city! That leaves us with the theory that 코너 supplies the ones sold in Emain Macha, or imports them too. Either way, following this train of thought makes me think it would be fun for each town to have its own local products or dishes. Colhen already has Iced Strawberry Juice, but if I could ask for a little more, how about some clam dishes, since it's by the sea? (You can catch clams in Bangor too, since the Gairech estuary is where the river meets the sea, but I'm thinking of something a little more representative of the place.) I'd love to see Tir Chonaill, Dunbarton, Bangor, and Emain Macha get their own specialties as well, with stories woven into them.

The first thing that comes to mind is Caitin's special bread from Tir Chonaill, since you can harvest wheat there and there's a mill, too. Lavender is also only available at the Tir Chonaill lookout, so it would be fun to see something unique to Tir Chonaill made with wheat and lavender. Dunbarton has a monopoly on apple trees and corn, so how about some apple dishes and corn dishes? Bangor has a monopoly on beans and parsnips; soy milk and tofu could be treated as its local specialties. Emain Macha has a monopoly on rice, oats, brick cap mushrooms, hazelnuts, and tea plants, and it's the only place you can harvest cabbages and pumpkins, too. Given how long cabbages have been sold in Tir Chonaill and Dunbarton, it seems Emain Macha has had that market to itself for quite some time.

Having written all this, I think what makes Butterbeer and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans in the Harry Potter books, Senzu Beans in Dragon Ball, and lembas in The Lord of the Rings feel so special is the worlds and stories behind them. I'd enjoy Mabinogi Mobile even more if it introduced more foods rooted in its own world and stories.