Foods of 'Pokémon': Gotta Eat ‘Em All

This sweeping media franchise has featured plenty of foods and drinks in its 25 years – including some made from Pokémon themselves. (Our courage will pull us through.) Y’all teach us, and we’ll teach you about the fictional foods of the 'Pokémon' universe.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anty Reeves and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about the foods of Pokemon. Yes, it's so exciting.
It's so exciting. It is very exciting, It is very
it is very odd. This is a wonderful, terrible, beautiful
rabbit hole to have fallen into for a few days. Yes,

(00:31):
And I was laughing aloud researching some of the words.
I was like, this is gonna be so fun to
say in attempted serious voice, or at least one where
I'm just not laughing through this. Um and yeah, so

(00:51):
many of you have written in about this. There are
so many fantastic puns in this universe, absolutely, and in
every language that it's published in. From what I understand,
they're like slightly unique and ever increasingly weird puns and
so uh yeah, like we are talking about the English
language ones here for the most part, but oh gosh,

(01:14):
if there's something really spectacular in a different language, please
write it and let us know, Yes, oh please. Um
and yeah, my my brothers were super into Pokemon. They
had the cards and they watched the show and uh,
they played the games and one of the only times
I've seen my little brother cry. I was at the movies.

(01:39):
You never listened, but was it me too? It was
a very sad thing. Um. And I have like flashbacks
and nightmares of Pikachu because of Super Smash Brothers. My
best friend Katie always played a Pikachu Peka Pika and
then you're on fire, You're dead? Wow? Uh sorry, I

(02:07):
went no, you clearly did. It's okay. I I never
I never got into the show or the game's growing up. Um.
It didn't come out until I was already in high school,
so I was a little bit a little bit old
for it at that point. Um. Not that not that
you're ever too old for it, because when Pokemon Go
came out, I definitely started playing that with my friends

(02:28):
and I am still playing that like to this day.
So yes, yeah, yes, And I have fond memories of
being in Hawaii and wrangling you and super producer Dylan.
You'd go off and play Pokemon Go. You'd be like, Eddie,
come up, please, just ten minutes, ten minutes, and I'd
be like fine. We were like in between places. We

(02:49):
were like kind of waiting for something, and I was
like there's an air dactyl over there and I need one. So,
you know, like we went on a little adventure. It
was nice. It was very nice and quite funny because this,
you know, Lauren says this to me and I'm thinking,
what is what is my life? And I will say

(03:12):
the theme song. The Pokemon theme song has been a
hit at work karaoke events, to the point I requested
every time it brings down the house and superproducers. I
think it was Dylan or maybe Andrew requested it the
first time, and there's no looking back. I'm pretty sure

(03:34):
we posted an Instagram video of us singing it stories
both of our superproducers here on Saber and also I
believe our super producer Paul gets really into it. But yeah,
I know it always I and like, oh my goodness,
I just watched an episode of the cartoon for the
very first time this past weekend. Um My, my friend Cody,

(03:56):
who has played like all of the games. I shout
out to them, by the way, because yeah, they typed
up an entire day list of food references in Pokemon
for me and sat me down and showed me the
Heck and Jelly Donuts episode of the cartoons series, and
and that was my first exposure to that thing outside

(04:17):
of karaoke. M Um, but it's a it's a catchy song,
no pun intended. Um. And you know, I like I
like our in house version, which goes more to the
extent of like, we're gonna be our very okayst yeah,
come on something like yeah or certain lines are really

(04:41):
shouted out to the rooftops and others are sort of
like it's excellent. I do miss that very much, very
very much. Yes, well, okay, I guess we should get
to our question. Oh gosh, for sure. Yeah. Pokemon foods,

(05:04):
what are they? Well? Um, Pokemon backing up a step
is a media franchise that began with a pair of
video games for the Nintendo Game Boy in um and
developed into a collectible card game that same year, an
anime series a year later than a manga and movies

(05:24):
and more, other video games and toys and a theme
park and everything. The games, an anime premier to the
United States, and the original video games are developed by
a Japanese company called Game Freak, co founded by Masuda
Janici and to Jiris Toshi. They based the concept on
kids going out and catching bugs, their small fish or

(05:45):
other animals. It's part of play, and yeah, that's what
the core of the games are about. Uh poke a
man is a portmanteau of pocket monsters taken as English
loanwords and um in the Japanese loanword al that cottakana.
So yeah, okay, and yeah in in the games, yeah,

(06:07):
you go find these creatures and you capture them, and
you train them, and you fight them against other creatures,
and you trade them and uh feed them and I
guess sometimes cook them and eat them sometimes. I mean,
like there's over eight hundred species. Some of them have
to be edible and tasty, right, It's just science. And

(06:33):
this franchise is a big deal. According to the company,
they have shipped over three hundred and sixty eight million
copies of their video games three sixty eight million, wow,
in nine languages over the past twenty five years. We
are in the anniversary of Pokemon right now, and yeah,

(06:55):
that puts the franchise second only to Mario in terms
of title soul old and I'm pretty sure the Pokemon
has made a lot more money, so hoof dang. Also,
thirty point four billion trading cards in thirteen languages um,
over a thousand episodes of the still ongoing anime, a

(07:18):
billion downloads of the mobile game Pokemon Go aforementioned. It's
it's bigger than I realized. Yeah, it's pretty big. I
mean remember what And you still see this sometimes when
those like marquees that's not really the word, but over
the road would be like don't drive and play Pokemon Go.
Like it's just weird to see this game in that

(07:42):
like government sense of like don't play it. Yeah, yeah,
I mean you know, Pokemon Goo tells you not to
play and drive like that is explicitly not not what
you're supposed to do. UM. Although I have definitely seen
here here in Georgia, we've got a hands for lam
in cars and so um a lot of people have

(08:03):
a little little gidgets on their dashboard that you can
pop your phone into, um for for touch free interaction
with it. And I've definitely seen other cars with Pokemon
Go up on their screen. Y u H. Always gives
me a good chuckle because and yes, just like there
is a fandom, is what we're saying. Oh yes, o, yes,

(08:27):
yes UM. And when you're looking at food, the internet
is rife with Pokemon themed recipes, and there have been
many product hie ins with Pokemon over the years. Uh,
like Baskin Robbins is Pikachu ice cream cake. Yeah, there

(08:47):
was this whole spate of things that were released right
around um, the release of one of the films in
the US and the year two thousand. Pop tarts with
bright yellow frosting and Pokemon shaped sprinkles on top. The
four shapes that they came in were Pikachu, Charmander, Chancey,
and Polly Raff, which seems like an odd combination to me,

(09:07):
but anyway. Um Uh. There was cereal with marshmallows. Those
were Pikachu, Ditto, Oddish and Polly Whirl. I'm so confused
by all of this. There was canned pasta and tomato
sauce from Hines. There were eggo waffles, just a lot
of things. I love this. I love this. Um. And

(09:28):
then the Pokemon Cafe opened in Tokyo, and the pictures
of the foods and drinks offered there are amazing, honestly,
really awesome. Every item ties to a Pokemon character. You've
got things like the Hardy Pikachu plate, which was a
small salad fried potatoes in the shape of a star
fried srimp, hamburger steak and a rice omelet shaped like

(09:50):
Pikachu obviously obviously, Gigglie Puffs, musical cheesecake, Ghastly's Mints, cutlet burger,
and the Genga smoothie. Everything about this is excellent. Huh.
I chose the last two because they were like Halloween
spooky things. Yeah, yeah, those are those are ghost Pokemon,

(10:14):
which is another I want to know about ghost POKEMONA.
We're gonna talk about some of them, Okay, excellent, Oh yeah,
Poka it is. It is a surprisingly to me, like
dark and strange world. I read the descriptions of some
of these dudes, and I'm like, this is a children's franchise,

(10:37):
Like that's messed up. Yeah, and we're gonna be talking
about some of these messed up elements. We will, but
first we are going to take a quick break for
a word from our sponsor. We're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,

(11:01):
thank you. And Okay, So, while this is a fictional universe,
many non fictional foods do fishure in it, and we
wanted to highlight some of those key examples, starting with
Yes Rocks famous jelly filled donuts, Yeah, which yes, key

(11:24):
viewing for this episode. Alright, so we talked about these
actually in our jelly donuts episode. So looking at these,
you might think they look like Japanese rice balls are
on Geary. However, four Kids Television Network was worried Western
audiences wouldn't recognize this Japanese food um or associated primarily

(11:49):
with Japanese cuisine perhaps um So in the English dub
they called them jelly donuts, and this went on to
become an infamous meme. Yeah, it's not that they call
them that once and then move along like this is
a running like this is like part of the structure
of the episode, and so they say it like nine

(12:11):
times like and everyone like like this character who made them,
who's called Brock in the dub, is is all like,
oh man, I made some jelly donuts. Nothing's better than
jelly donuts, would you like someone my famous jelly donuts.
And everyone's like, oh man, I love jelly donuts. And
then later they're like, oh I wish I had some
jelly donuts. Donuts are great, jelly filled in my favorite

(12:33):
nothing beats a jelly filled donut. And it just it
gets funny your every single time it happens. Because it
is clearly a rice ball wrapped in seaweed, and like
some of the characters, like some of the shots, like
they've bitten into it. And you can see the little bushi,
the little um pickled plum inside. Like there's no universe
in which this looks like a jelly donut, is what

(12:55):
I'm saying. Anyway, I feel like I've seen. I think
he really captured it, Lauren. Yeah, yeah, it did. It
went on to become a very very uh infamous meme,
and it did inspire numerous recipes for the donuts, including
one created by Benching with Babish, and also recipes for

(13:20):
rocks rice balls. Yeah, he created two recipes, one for
the donuts and one for the rice balls. It's pretty sweet. Um.
And then kind of related uh mile satas, which are
our type of fried doughnuts, usually coated in sugar, sometimes filled.
You can see our episode from our Hawaiian mini series

(13:41):
we did on them for more information. Um. Pokemon also
these and people in this universe all sweet. These they're
healing and I agree, oh yeah, oh yeah, no, we
had some really really really good ones out in Hawaiti. Uh,
And the world of Pokemon is sort of like a
like a parallel universe Earth, um, And there are several

(14:01):
world regions that bear similarity to Earth regions, and one
of them is sort of parallel to Hawaii. It's called
a Lola. Oh okay. So there's also brock stew, which
is a common stew that this character Brock cooks up
in the Pokemon universe. There's no recipe or real indication

(14:23):
of what exactly it entails. Um. The internet is right
with recipes though, from chowders to creamy soups. And if
I understand correctly, this was another kind of um, purposeful
mistranslation in the cartoon series because it's like like like
when you when you look at it, it's like clearly
a cream based dish. Um. It looks like maybe like
a kind of curry, like it's meant to be like

(14:45):
a curry rice kind of situation. But they just the
dub is like, this is beef stew. Would you like
some beef stew? So was it sounds like they're kind
of trying to mess with your head, like you know,
like a subliminal message like oh this is I don't

(15:06):
I don't know. There's a lot of things that honestly
tripped me out really hard about all. I think I
can see like a black Mirror episode where you're just
like constantly being told that your truths you held to
be true are not true at all, being slowly gaso

(15:27):
lit into oblivion by Pokemon. Okay, never saw that one coming,
but you should have. I guess I should have brand
for us. We've gotten to the bottom of this. If
you never hear from us again, you'll know, you'll know why. Yeah. Yeah,

(15:48):
Pokemon game freak got to us finally. Um uh so
so yeah. So A couple of those dishes are our
home cooked dishes within the pokem On universe. But there
are restaurants in the world of Pokemon, a number of
them that appear across various games, and um, eating at
them involves battling other trainers or the staff. Oh yeah,

(16:14):
just eat at the restaurant. You've got a yeah, no, no, no,
yeah right. So, so I believe in the game's Sun
and Moon, you can visit the battle buffet in a
lola um and you like browse the dishes offered, and
if you choose one on this buffet that another trainer wants,
they will battle you for it. And at the end

(16:35):
of your dining experience, you're a waitress will give you
a satisfaction score based on how many dishes you got
and their quality. And these satisfaction scores go ahead, you
go ahead, I have questions, Yeah, go ahead, okay. And
these satisfaction scores range from you look totally unsatisfied, like

(16:56):
your body and mind are both still hungry. Um at
the end to uh, you have the look of someone
whose belly is full of delicious goodies at the top end. So, okay,
I mean this isn't too far off from a buffet
in in our real world. Correct, I've seen some throwdowns.

(17:18):
I don't think I've ever you as the consumer of
food gets rated. Okay, yeah, okay. Um. And apparently there
is a replay bonus that if you've played through the
game and you go back. Um, it includes a woman
who is known as the Buffet Queen, and she shows

(17:40):
up and if you can get a perfect satisfaction score
while she's there, she will name you the new Buffet
Queen or King too much responsibility, I know you know. Um.
The dishes that appear there include a steak, some ramens,
some sushi, and a number of other things that I
will get back to in a minute. I believe in

(18:00):
the game Pokemon Stadium, there's a mini game set in
a like a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, you know where
liq at tongues, which is a type of poke a dude.
They compete to eat the most sushi off of the belt.
They've got these long, long, long tongues. So yeah. Um.

(18:26):
And in another game, I think it's in Omega Ruby
and Alpha Sapphire. Um, you can visit the Maville Mauville
food court in Hollan, which is based on Japan's main island.
You in in this game, you you you order food
from one of the food courts three counters, and then
take a seat at a table to wait for your meal,

(18:47):
and other trainers will come and challenge you for your
seat while you wait. What no again, this is like
this is pretty close to real life, Like I've seen
this happen. That is true, h. I believe the three

(19:11):
restaurants there are a sandwich shop, um, a French place,
a French cafe, and a Raman shop. And I think
from the same games, you can also visit four restaurants,
four different restaurants in a Lumio City and Callos, which
is based on Paris, France. And in these games, every
dish that you order has a specific amount of cooking time,

(19:35):
like like a number of game turns necessary for the
dish to come out perfectly, and so your server will
challenge you to a game with exactly that many turns,
and the quality of the dish will therefore depend on
whether you can meet this this time challenge. This is
a lot of like it seems if I just want

(19:56):
to eat a food, very difficult to do in this world.
I know this all seems very stressful to me personally,
but I'm thinking about how mad I am when I'm hungry,
and well then yeah, you might be a contender and
they say you, oh, you could be the buffet queen.

(20:20):
You know, someone's got to do it. I'm imagining a
Mandalorian spinoff where like the Mandalore is like the Buffet
lore or something. Yeah, oh no, And I said, the
Dark Saber it's like a spoon. Yeah, this is what
this is what I would be in this universe. I

(20:41):
would rule over the buffet with an iron gauntlet. Well,
I did want to I did want to put in
here that in that that the names of these four
like french Ish restaurants in this game, in order of
quality from lowest to highest are restaurant Lena, restaurant, Yeah,

(21:06):
a restaurant low wow um, and the sushi high Roller.
This kind of a pivot, yeah, but I appreciated it. Yeah.
Remember Laurena and I were having this conversation the other
day with our friend Joe McCormick about like key points
in universes that you can tell your your universe because

(21:30):
it has never been said before in any other university,
like like a singularity. Right, You're just like, Nope, that's
it right there, That is this universe. I feel like
a lot of sentences in this are giving me that
vibe of like this has never been said before anywhere else. Yes, this,

(21:50):
this combination of words is unique to this situation, and
it's so true, like a podcast fingerprint is what's happening
for our universe. And it's only gonna get weirder because
now we're going to talk about some Pokemon by products.
So yes, humans in this world also eat Pokemon by

(22:14):
products like Mumu milk from a milk tank, which can
be also made into Mumu cheese or the allegedly more
nutritious and protein packed Chancey eggs. Yeah, Chancey and Blissies eggs.
You can eat them. Um. Their signature moved, by the way,
is soft boiled. I'm having such a hard time from

(22:36):
not laughing. Wonderful. Uh yeah, one of there A couple
of the dishes you can get at the aforementioned battle
buffet Um include a Chancey egg omelet and a milk
tank cheese pizza. There's also a dish there that's called
a Vanillite parfit, And I'm unsure whether it's made out

(22:57):
of vanillites or if it just looks like one, because
vanilla is this pokemon made of ice like just happens
to have this kind of head shape or covering that
that looks like vanilla soft serve. But from what I understand,
from what I understand it, it's not made of soft serve.
It's made of ice. You could get shave ice, though

(23:21):
I have not I have not witnessed to your knowledge. Yeah, yeah,
that occur. But now I'm pretty sure that there is
a toy out there that is that is this thing?
M oh and one of the dishes at restaurant ly yeah,
um is a blue cheese made from the milk or

(23:43):
venom of a female arbok, which is a type of snake. Ah. Yes,
that's another fun thing. Since neither you are or are
very familiar with this world. Um, I did look up
pictures all the pokemon were talking about. This is a
good chuckle as well. Yeah yeah, if you if you

(24:03):
need a descript most of what we mentioned in here,
I'm familiar enough with to describe. So if you need
me to, I think I might. I don't know what
I offered myself for. Um uh yeah, but no, I
mean lots of Apparently there are lots of edible by

(24:23):
products that come from pokemon. Um. There's a thing called
a snow over that sort of looks like a like
a snow covered tree, and I guess it grows nuts
under under the branch type appendages on its belly. Tropius
grows edible berries. Not sure about that, guy, Uh, octillery
inc Is edible? Yeah, well optic stude Yeah. Combi Um

(24:47):
and vesp queen both make honey and uh Skitto milk,
which is a plant based milk, can be used to
make snacks. Okay, okay, I think I got so stuck
on the snow I got stuck on the very first
thing you said of growing nuts. Um, it's belly. But

(25:11):
I'm catching up, all right. Um. Then there's the extremely
awkward looking turtle named Schuckle. According to the poke a
decks quote hides under rocks, keeping its body concealed inside
its shell while eating stored berries. The berries mixed with

(25:32):
its body fluids to become a juice, and that this
juice is quote delicious. M hmm. That that is what
I said. When Cody said that to me, I was like, oh, really, questions,
many questions. I guess that's a good segue into what

(25:55):
we're going to talk about next, um, which is pokemon
as a food, because yes, it seems humans do eat
pokemon and that perhaps some pokemont other pokemon I think so, yeah,
or parts of them at least. Um. So, for example,

(26:16):
humans can purchase slow poke tail, both peppered on salad
and in keiche form or dried in a Lowland stews spiced,
which might involve simmering a slow poke until the tail
falls off. And uh yeah, these tails can be very expensive.
I saw prices and high cost item. Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly.

(26:38):
And it's also implied that they are sometimes sucked on
like maybe honeysuckle or something instead of straight eaten. So
so slow pokes are this kind of um, how would
you It's like a it's like a smooth pink otter
looking creature, sort of like a like a chubby pink otter,

(27:00):
all right, And they apparently use their own tails as
fishing lures, so I guess it follows that those tails
are tasty, and and this has been like a kind
of confusing point throughout several games and or other bits
of the franchise, Like apparently the removal and black market
sale of slow poked tails was at first a money

(27:23):
making scheme by the evil team Rocket and the cause
of much outrage. But the tails do grow back pretty quickly,
and like slow pokes are kind of not smart enough
to feel pain, and like later talking on the slow folk,
and like later it became more widely accepted as a

(27:45):
food stuff, and in a lola, their tails just like
fall off anyway, So it's okay, I don't really I
don't really, I don't really understand. Um. The full day,
another another dish at restaurant ly Yeah, is a bracciola

(28:07):
of slow poke tail. So there you go, fancy right, right,
there's a vivid fantasy among human characters about cooking a
magic harp, so you know that implies that perhaps they
eat it, but maybe not, or maybe they just really
want to and they're like, oh man, maybe it's like

(28:28):
when I go to the aquarium and I feel bad
thinking about what all of the fish would taste like, Yeah, okay,
so let's talk about far fetched. The pok decks entry
for far fetched reads a wild duck Pokemon far fetched
makes a delicious meal, especially when cooked with leak. Because

(28:52):
of this, far fetched is nearly extinct, and we talked
about far fetched in our Scallion Green Onions If episode.
Yeah yeah, because this this uh, this pokemon is right.
It's it's this duck Pokemon that's carrying a leak. And
it's based on um this saying in Japanese, which translates

(29:14):
something to the extent of like, it's lucky if a
duck crosses your path carrying its own leak, meaning that
like that like ducks are delicious, leaks are delicious, Duck
leak soup is delicious. So if like a duck just
wanders by you and it's already carrying a leak, that's
that's hacking. That's hacking. Great fortune, that's a good day. Yeah,

(29:36):
one less step for you. Two birds, one stone, as
they say. Hey. However, the far fetched situation is a
bit different in the Garler region, which is UK based
whatstand um where sir Fetched, which is an evolution of
far fetched, will come for you if you even think

(29:57):
about it. Think about putting this precious duck based pokemon
with a leak into soup um and sir fetched is
a is a bird with a huge scallion sword it's
like bigger than he is, and a vegetable shield of
some sort. Highly recommend looking at pictures. Yeah yeah, very
stern looking. I would not want to mess with that. Yes,

(30:19):
hilariously angry. Yeah yeah, I don't want to mess with either. Uh.
It's also a possibility that I couldn't confirm this, but
it's a possibility to Sometimes um mill tanks, which are
a cow pokemon are sometimes made into hamburgers. I like
this can confirm. We need more fact checkers on this one.

(30:41):
We need the best minds um. Let's talk about Kingler
and the pokemon it evolved from Crabby. It's never explicitly
confirmed that humans eat these lobster grab looking Pokemon, but
there is a dish and Pokemon sword and shield, and
it's employed in the original animal that crabby are for

(31:02):
eating and fighting. There's definitely images out there of like
soups or stews that just objectively have crappy parts sticking
out of them. So yeah, And and the name you know, crabby,
I believe is a pun on this very crabby crouchy

(31:24):
uh creature come on and fights at but can also
perhaps be eaten. People also eat the meat found inside
the punching glove like claws of the crab brawler or
crab brawler. Perhaps um quote what little meat they contain
is rich and delicious, that's from the poke a decks.

(31:46):
Sure yeah, clouncher's claws are eaten too, but their claws
fall off naturally, So perhaps snow coclemon was harmed in
that one. Um. Craw Dants used to be eaten, but
apparently folks decided that they tasted bad and smelled bad too,
so good for the crawl dance. Perhaps, I don't know,

(32:12):
mm hmm, I don't know how it feels about it.
I wouldn't presume to say that's wise you should do
that Then there's scarpedo. According to the poke dex quote,
it has a sad history in the past. It's dorsal
fin was a treasured food stuff. So this pokemon it
became a victim of overfishing. You know. I like that.
I like that there is like like sustainable outlooks on

(32:36):
fishery within the Pokemon universe. I'm glad that they're thinking
about it. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Then there's bar Rescua, which yes,
does look like a bear cuta. Here's the entry from
the poke a dex on this one. Bearscua's flesh is
surprisingly tasty. Mm hmm. Another fish type Pokemon, basculine, is

(33:00):
eaten on a larger scale quote a common food source.
Then there are gabyte scales. So the gabite is like
a dragon thing and it scales apparently grant restorative properties
when eaten and are used for other medicinal properties to However,
gabytes naturally malt their scales, so maybe they are not

(33:23):
harmed in the process either. Yeah. I believe seedrus scales
are also used in traditional medicine. Okay, and now we're
getting into the the dessert and cafe section. Um. Okay,
so I am given to understand that there is a
cotton candy pokemon called Swirlings which evolves into a slur puff,

(33:49):
which Cody described as a sentient meringue. It actually sounds
terrifying to me. That sounds like some you know what's
it called in D and D those gloves you're letting
mis cube cinthiate. Meringue is something that you could encounter
in a D and D. I'm honestly a little weirded

(34:11):
out by meringue to begin with. And so yeah, this
sounds like the stuff of nightmares. And now I am
pretty sure you're going to use that knowledge against me
in a future game of D and D. Great, never
give the master ideas, do it, y'all um. And then

(34:31):
Appleton's some of your listeners have written in about this one.
I adore this, so it's It's one of the evolutions
of Applin, the other being flapp hole flap h that
is so good. Appleton also first appeared in Sword and Shield.
And it looks straight up like a pie. The polk

(34:55):
a decks and tree for it reads. Its body is
covered in a sweet nectar, and the skin on its
back is especially yummy. Children used to have it as
a snack. I don't know what that means. I don't
know what that means. I know, terrifying. I just imagine
children like ripping off the skin like malts naturally, I

(35:20):
don't know, I don't know. Okay. Then we have the Milsery,
which is a cream blob Pokemon that evolves into um
al creamy, which is a again Cody described it as
a whipped cream monkeylus um. And to evolve this, this
guy you have to eat, You personally have to spin

(35:42):
around and then strike a pose. And the flavor of
the al creamy that you wind up with depends on
the time of day that you do this, in the
length and direction of the spin, plus what kind of
food it's holding at the time. Wow, and that is
already a lot. But then Cody said out loud to me,

(36:04):
as though it were a thing that people just say,
it never stops producing cream. This is like a horror movie.
It's like the Ring. I don't you understand. It never
stops producing cream. Terrifying. It apparently uses this cream defensively,

(36:30):
like when attacked, it will throw cream and its opponent,
and if the opponents should eat the cream, it soothes
it until the opponent doesn't even want to fight anymore.
Oh my brain is struggling so hard to confidend all
of this. But it's excellent whipped cream homunculous. Yeah, tell

(36:55):
Cody thank you. I already did. I will add your
thanks to the thanks piles. Oh wow. Then there's cheruby Chruby,
which is basically a cute little cherry with an even
little er cherry sleeping on its head. And this little

(37:17):
cherry is described in the pok decks as sweet and tasty. Okay,
but this is where it gets crazy. Um. This baby
head is where the rubies nutrients comes from, so it
can't survive without it, so if you take it, you're
leaving poor Ruby to die a slow death. But it's

(37:41):
tasty I meant apparently because both poke came on and
people eat it, so oh wow. Okay. Then then, um
there are Sinisty and pole t Geist wa are black

(38:01):
tea pokemon that possess teacups and teapots respectively. Um. Sinistery
can drain your life force if you drink it, but
apparently it tastes really bad, so like generally that doesn't happen.
You like usually spit it out pretty fast. Um paulty geist,
on the other hand, tastes really good, but it only
lets trusted trainers drink it. What it can cause indigestion

(38:25):
if you drink too much, so watch out for that.
What Furthermore, y'all both come in two forms um antique
and phony, and you can tell the too apart, but
by seeing whether there's an authenticity mark on the bottom.

(38:47):
So there are both genuinely produced which are rarer and
uh phony haunted teacups and teapots that you can drink
the pokemon out of. So does that imply that the
haunting is not real? It's a phony haunting. It's a

(39:10):
it's a real haunting, but it's a it's a phony
piece of china. Oh, I'm glad we cleared that up.
Then the haunting is quite real, got it? Got it?
I don't want to drink too much. No indigestion understood. Yeah,

(39:30):
And I will say that the hardest I laughed while
doing this reading um was at this pair of kataku
hadlines um. The first was paulty guist is made out
of tea and you shouldn't drink it. And the second
is stopped telling me to drink the new Tea, Pokmon, Nintendo.

(39:55):
These were like two months apart, and I just felt
the like increasing desperation on the part of Kataku. Oh
that's wonderful. Yeah. Um yeah. The second hartist I laughed,

(40:17):
I had I had to put in here is uh
when when I realized that there is a legit article
about the food politics of Pokemon in the magazine Modern Farmer.
Wow on Modern Farmer. Right, all right, okay, it's all
these questions about like sustainability and like responsibility and like

(40:41):
ethics of eating these sentient beings. That's some nursery I
would pull. Yeah. Yeah, I've written about the economy of
a fantasy world once. My friends were like, you've got
to stop. But I have questions, speaking of we have

(41:02):
some more questions. We do, we do, but first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, and

(41:22):
uh so so we we do frequently take a quick
break during our ad breaks, um, and just just have
a little bit of a chat. And in this one, y'all. Uh.
Producer Andrew, who by the way, referred to before we
started recording today Pokemon as being his childhood crystallized. So

(41:43):
so yes group grew up with these games in this show,
and UH made sure. We wanted to make sure that
we mentioned the pokemon um Bounce Sweet because this is
a Pokemon from the Lolan area that resembles a mango steam,
which we have talked about on the show. And in

(42:03):
doing a quick google about this, I discovered that um
they're often used as living air fresheners because they smell
so sweet, and that they are in fact too sweet
for human consumption. But it's sweat is sometimes used to
make a juice sweat juice m That is what I

(42:27):
have been given to understand from the Internet, and perhaps
it's best to leave it at that. I think we
should move on. Yes, although I have to say we're
not necessarily moving into safer territory. That is absolutely accurate,

(42:51):
because now we wanted to discuss the diets of Pokemon. Yeah, yes,
do they include other Pokemon? This has long I'm being
a mystery at the forefront of Pokemon scholars minds generally,
as makes sense because you know, when you're talking about
like game mechanics, UM food fed to Pokemon serves as

(43:14):
a curative or a stat's enhancer. Many real world foods
make an appearance in their diet, lots of berries, um,
and fictional foods as well. There is a definite Pokemon
food chain in place. Yeah. While most Pokemon appeared to
be omnivorees, others eat insects and piggi eggs and catter

(43:37):
pie that's a type of caterpillar. Yeah yeah um yeah.
Berries do seem to be the most common food for Pokemon. Um.
You can harvest or grow them in different games. Um.
They usually write have some kind of health or other
effect on Pokemon. Um. They're like over sixty different kinds
of berries. There is a berry decks um. Many are

(43:59):
based real world fruits. Pokemon berry parallels to foods that
we have covered on the show include the per sim berry,
the nanab berry, the pineap berry, duran berry, got it,
pashow berry, and the merkleberry or mickleberry my michael berry anyway.

(44:33):
Um and apparently in some games, the types of berries
will correspond to improvement scores in particular categories. So like,
dry berries add to a Pokemon's beauty, spicy berries add
to a pokemon's coolness factor, sweet berries add cuteness. Bitter
berries impart smartness um, and sour berries impart toughness. Yeah

(44:58):
all right, um, and in some games you can combine
them to make a different more advanced food items or medicines. Right. Um.
And then there's a Brocks homemade Pokemon food, which sort
of looks like a dry pet food. Prior to the

(45:19):
introduction of berries, Pokemon food was implied to be the
main food source for Pokemon. Although berries are an ingredient
in this and like pet food in all real world,
they are designed to be This food is designed to
be tasty and healthy. Um. It is edible by humans
as well, particularly trainers and breeders. They'll taste it to

(45:41):
test how good it is the texture, and Brock is
known for making some of the best Pokemon food in
a variety of flavors. Yes. Then there are poke blocks um,
and these are candies made of mixed berries that um
in a handful of flavors and yes, raise some stats

(46:03):
when eaten. And then there are puffins, which is a
combo of the words pokemon and muffins. This food item
debuted in generation four and they are these sort of
bun looking things that increase uh. Yeah, you'd feed to
a Pokemon to increase the chance of a Pokemon winning
a battle. They're made of berries and come in sweet

(46:26):
and sour flavors, and Lord help me. There is a
formula involved, um which is L equals sixty capital B
over T minus parentheses lowercase B plus S, where capital
B is the base level, T is the time taken
in seconds, the lower case V is the number of burns,
and S is the number of spills guaranteed to boost

(46:49):
a Pokemon and at least one of five categories Yes, tough, beauty, cool, smart,
and keep math formulas. Uh. And then there poke puffs.
These cake like items are meant to up at Pokemon's
affection for you, and thus can unlock special bonuses for

(47:10):
the player. Players can win these and Pokemon on mini
games in generation six. Flavors include sweet mint, mocha, spice,
wish Honor, along with seasonal varieties, and there is a
poke a Puff baking contest in the anime from what
I understand. Also from what I understand, there are pope

(47:32):
poke beans that you can send your Pokemon to mine
on on this island called the Isle of Beans. Isle
of Beans. I see what you guys, uh. And then

(47:56):
there's rare candy. These sugary treats boost to pokemons ergy
without battle or daycare and raise their level by one. Again,
like I feel that depending on the games. Oh yeah,
these a lot of these appear in many different games
and many different capacities. So yeah, yes, curry, so many

(48:19):
types of curry in facts. Um. Yeah, and making it
is a mini game and depending on the result, it
can boost one or some of your Pokemon stats. It's
popular in Galaur, which is yeah, essentially the UK. Yeah.
And you can make it by combining different berries and
also other ingredients, um, like a sausages, different types of

(48:43):
tinned foods, um, bread, pasta, mixed mushrooms, smoked poke, a tail,
large leaks, brittle bones, instant noodles. Um. So you you choose,
you choose your berries, you choose your base ingredient, which
is one of these, and then and then there are
three steps. You you fan the flames, you fan the

(49:03):
cooking flames, you give the pot a good stirring, and
then you put your heart into it. Those are those
are the three steps. Um. And yes, there's a curry
dex to help you figure out what types of curry
you make. Uh, and and they'll wind up yeah, like
bitter sour, sweeter word or whatever. So you can get

(49:25):
like a bitter coconut curry or a spicy toast curry.
And yes, that smoked poke atail is definitely slow poke tail.
And you can definitely make slow poke tail curry and
then feed it to your slow poke. So yeah, it's
messed up. Heart agree, that's best six sad World apparently,

(49:54):
Oh my gosh, this is like, I'm such a when
you have those game to have the moral choice that
you have to make, I can't like even if it's
a video game. I'm like, never will I step on
this flower or whatever, And my my brothers were always like,
I'm gonna stop that flower out. Um, it feels like

(50:14):
this slow pokee thing of one of those. Yeah, but
let's end it on a less darkness. Yes, let's and
talk about Pikachu's Ketchup. Apparently Pikachu is a huge Catchup
fan I'm catch up Catchup and has cried actual tears

(50:38):
when Ketchup is taken from him. As a fellow fan,
I was about to say, I love this because Annie,
I feel like you can probably relate. I can, I
don't know if I've ever cried when someone took my
ketchup away, but I doubt they would even dare do
such a thing. In two thousand, Hines even release a

(51:01):
limited edition catch up bottle that featured Pikachu on it.
That's yeah, so you know you're synonymous with the food,
Like that's if I ever get my face or something
that's like the equivalent, that would be beautiful one day,
one day. Yeah, I just gotta follow in Pikachu's footsteps,

(51:22):
even though I'm traumatized by his battle cry. Oh well,
this has been a weird, wacky, wild, but very fun adventure.
Oh yeah, yeah. I I just I just feel increasingly
tripped out by all of this, Like none of this
doesn't make me feel tripped Yeah. Yeah, there were things

(51:46):
I was saying out loud and my brain was like,
are you sure that's a sentence Like I think it is.
I think it's a sentence that makes sense. Yeah, and
I am positive that there is stuff that we Again,
as we both said at the top, you know, like
neither of us are like poke a experts. Um uh.
We might have mispronounced things or missed your favorite things

(52:10):
or or something like that. So if we did that,
then please do right in and let us know. But
in the meanwhile, we do have some listener mail for you.
We do, and I tripped us up with the ad
breaks today, so we're going right into it. We are,

(52:30):
But but do you want to do? You have prepared
a Oh, it's obvious. It's obvious, Lauren. Here we go. Okay, well,
so it is time for listen. Man. I think that's
gonna be a hard one. I wasn't going to try

(52:51):
to find I was like, oh, I know what's coming,
but with the lag in our internet connection, I'm never
going to be able to Yeah. Anyway, thank you Anny,
Thank you Lauren. It was a whole like move with you.
Oh my huh. Lisa wrote as someone who grew up
in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I've always loved Pennsylvania Dutch food,

(53:14):
but I now live in Washington State, where I can
rarely get it. So I did want to mention that,
in my opinion, scrapple is best enjoyed with syrup. So
if and when you ladies try it, don't forget it. Also,
the main reason I emailed today was your Saffron episode.
I've always associated saffron with saffron rice. But another food
I always had growing up was chicken corn soup, which

(53:36):
my mom made and it was the best. I tried
to make it on my own one time and it
was awful. I later found out that the key to
a good chicken corn soup is saffron. Also, if you
ladies ever do a Pennsylvania Dutch food episode, definitely look
into the debate of dumplings versus no dumplings in your
chicken corn soup. It is a big matter of debate

(53:58):
in the area. I love of a dumpling debate, and
I am no doubts that it is. I've never heard
of chicken corn soup, but it sounds good to me. Yeah,
I'm not sure. I'm not sure what particular type that is. Um.
I've had soups that had both chicken and corn in them,
but but it wasn't tasted chicken corn soup. I don't know. Yeah,

(54:22):
we'll have to get to the bottom of it. We shall.
Joe wrote, I was so delighted to listen to your
Haggas episode, especially when you mentioned Burns Knight. It reminded
me of graduate school at Durham University in the UK
and My favorite college formal was enough College represent Burns Night.
There were bagpipes and recitations of Robert Burns poetry, of course,
and speeches like a toast to the Laddies and the Lasses,

(54:44):
in which there was much gentle roasting of the opposite sex.
All toasts were done with whiskey or iron brew. The
whiskey was very strong, and as an American, I rather
expected the iron brew to taste like orange soda. Spoiler alert,
it did not. Was even Kaylee after the dinner. Kaylee
has a traditional dance and music which has often been

(55:06):
compared to a fight as much as a dance can confirm.
There's lots of swinging circles and flinging your partner to
the next person. It's so much fun and a great
way to burn off all the calories from the dinner
onto the food. Because it was a formal, we had
the usual soup course, main course, and dessert course. Since
it was Burns Night, we had an additional haggist course

(55:26):
in between the soup and the main It was the
first time I've ever had haggists, so I was excited
but also full of trepidation. I was so pleasantly surprised,
no weird texture at all, and full of spices, which
is not something you got during a formal dinner at
UNI in the UK. It was so good, in fact,
that I was tempted to ask for another serving of
haggis rather than endure the roast beef main course, which

(55:48):
was dry and uninspired in comparison. After that, I made
it a point to try haggas whenever I could. There
was a pub in Edinburgh where I had it prepared
like scrapple crisp on the outside and practical eat melt
in your mouth in the center. Delicious. Oh that sounds
like such a good time, right, All of that sounds amazing, Yes, yes,

(56:12):
food so good. We've got to get to one of
these celebrations. Lord, we genuinely do. That is right. There's
poetry and toasting and haggis, bagpipes, come on, dancing, dancing,
aggressive dancing. That's the only kind of good at excellent

(56:36):
right in Thanks so much to both of those listeners
for writing. If you would like to write to as,
you can our emails Hello at favorite pod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, you can go to

(56:57):
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks so much to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
are coming your way.