Which Pikmin is the Tastiest?

The recent Nintendo title, Pikmin 4 , has hit the market and been a joy for all ages. If the leafy bunch has never scurried past you, let me fill you in. The games fallow the adventures of space faring captains that get strand on not quite exactly earth. Despite fighting off suffocation, debt and starvation the games have a cozy natural environment to explore for needed pieces and treasure to your salvation. To function as your defense and means to transport resources are the pikmin. Small root vegetables on toothpick legs, they come assorted with multiple colors and abilities to aid the player. Personally I’ve already lost a solid 14 hours or so to the charming antics of the veggie themed helpers. Now, a small army to conquer the land with soldiers starkly colored and varied, how are you not to wonder what they must taste like

The franchise itself has not been too shy on the topic, canonically giving the pikmin name from a brand of carrots. Along with many wink,wink,nudge,nudge character descriptions, I’m convinced a key component to each type of pikmin is their culinarily contributions. So lets dive into it, at least of the original 3 varieties. (also ask which ninjas would sit at this dinner table.)

While the series now has 5+ main variations of pikmin the very first was simple. Bright red and sharply nosed are the red pikmin, names didn’t need to be to creative at this point. simple in name, but not in preparation. This type compared to the others has slight damage buff, 1.5 to 1, so I imagine they will also be a tad bit tougher to chew. Nextly their smooth bright red skin directly reminds me bell peppers or jalapenos. Eaten on their own, only being for those who love to be an affront to mature and its natural deterrents, to me and everyone sane, a delightful addition of kick to a entree. Its their last characteristic where this becomes harder. When I first began this rabit hole thought I pictured pikmin potato chip bags. Easy snack packs ready to go in a child’s school lunch. As pikmin are small and thin they could be backed in the same fashion as a thinly laid chip batter. Yellow and blue could, but not red. This might be the biggest hurdle because how much cooking is based around heating thing to extreme temperatures? Red pikmin are fire proof, the can’t be roasted, baked or seared. In game they can sit indefinitely in a raging inferno. So where’s the solution, starring into their small unaware eyes and eating them raw by the handful, no! We mash them, beat them, pestle them until all thats left is a thick red mess garnished with their own leafs. Add any spices you’re fond of in your spicy of choice and we have a solid tabasco sauce ready to add to our eggs.

(Of the ninjas Thief would occasionally add this to meals, but it would never be her go to. Peach would be in the same boat but maybe using more often. Camo would drink it straight from the bottle if he hadn’t caught anything that day. Master would be having it with his eggs as he made Paper prep this sauce. Paper would hear the pitiful pikmin screams in his sleep each time he had hammer this mash thoroughly)

Next we encounter the yellow pikmin, long eared and notably lighter the the others. Laking the fire resistant property of red we can now go back to our early thought of pikmin chips with salt and pepper, but thats just scrapping the surface of these shockingly resourceful critters. By this point in the franchise, yellow pikmin have probably the most unique attributes across them all. Their yellow appearance makes me think tart fruit, like a lemon or any other high citric tree bearing snack. It’s more associated thought then substance, but their ability to conduct electricity also reminds me of the intense face puckering that can come from some of these flavors. While not soul theirs anymore, yellow pikmin were the first to be able to hold bomb rocks, an explosive item used for extreme destruction or offensively against enemies. They did come with the catch of unexpected friendly fire if you can’t clear the blast zone. Even so I want to incorporate this into the plane. Yellow pikmin can also be thrown higher because their lighter, nothing to do with that but this dish is celebrating their many skills, so it’s getting mentioned. Finally yellow pikmin have some sort of ability to find completely buried objects. There’s no definitive reason for this, the assumption is some kind of sonar related to their ears, but let’s use this. We’ll start by blending the base, to as thin a liquid we can achieve and distill that to its concentrated flavor. A high intensity tart flavoring to be mixed into a soft candy batter, something around the viscosity of an airhead, now the crazy part. Let’s add the bomb rocks, not unfiltered of corse, you’d blow your jaw off. We break them down to there smallest parts, there absolute smallest part to avoid and accidents, to the point where the go off similar to a bag of rock pops. Save those for now because we’re bring in some extra flavor the same way I bring saw dust into the house. Fallow me, I do alot off wood work and all that dust just cotes my body, i smell like it, I taste like it! I’m eaten enough of the wood dust to feel sure enough yellow pikmin digging up all sorts of things will coat them the same. Now lets incorporate that into our snack, create afew varied sweet flavors and add each separately into a sugar mix, heat until liquid and sprinkle in the bomb rocks. Now take the soft candy batter roll out as many small balls as you like sizable enough to hold with just your thumb and index fingers. Now lay them on a sheet and coat the with the hard sugar mix. When dry you have M&M esc sweet treats with an explosive kick. An EXTREME candy straight out of a 90s commercial.

(Peach would pop down an entire box of these and make them disappear as if magic, but avoid eating them to often for dieting reasons. This would not stop Thief who would have these in her mouth all day every day but only one at a time, she would be holding conversations this way too. Camo would avoid these, not tacking them if offered, but more because of their light nutrition rather then overly intense flavor. Master rarely eat a box, but savor it when he does. Paper would taste nothing but bitterness while begins to notice strange apparitions coming from these ingredients)

Last and honestly the least are the blue pikmin. There genuinely isn’t much to say, their blue and have gils that make them the only water proof pikmin of the original three. There amphibious nature makes them useful for pond scavenging, But I’m lost on what the might taste like, but maybe we can use that to our advantage. Now they are the only pikmin to process water so in theory they are softer then the other pikmin, sponger. Let’s make them into a delicious miso soup where they take the place of the tofu. Mix standard miso, salt, kelp and thinly chopped scallions, your pikmin can wait in the pot. Heat until boiling, don’t worry that we didn’t prep the pikmin, they boil like any vegetable. Afew minutes boiling then letting sit is all you’ll need. Now you have a satisfying salty side with soft to the touch blue pikmin to add to any entree.

(Everyone would eat this normally, its still mostly miso soup. Except Paper who looks stressed and believes his soup is staring back at him)

As you can see, pikmin are a excellent and potentially wide ranging ingredient to add to your culinary arsenal. I’ll leave you with one last marvel to the kitchen the bring, the self reproduce by recycling your trash through their onions, so you’ll never be short a quick and easy meal. Hope you enjoy this long rambling of too much thought disguised as entertainment.

(Paper will not sleep tonight)