To win the cooking festival, you need to bring a recipe that corresponds to the category of food that the Gourmet announces during the festival. You need to upgrade your house and buy the kitchen and the additional utensils to win the cooking festival.
To join the festival, go to Rose Square on the 22nd of spring between 10:00 AM and 11:59 AM. The Gourmet will tell you the theme for the festival. Head back home and cook a dish, return to Rose Square and give the dish to Mayor Thomas.
Food Categories
There are five categories for the cooking festival. The categories are tied to a certain year, but after that, it is completely random.
- Year 1: Juice
- Year 2: Dessert
- Year 3: Bread
- Year 4: Noodles
- Year 5: Rice
Recipes
The kitchen is essential in winning the festival, because you can make your own variation of a recipe and add more ingredients. Adding more ingredients to a recipe increases your chances of winning the cooking festival.
If you join the festival with a dish that’s different from the theme, you’ll get disqualified. For example, you can enter with a rice recipe for a juice themed festival, but the Gourmet will get mad and disqualify you.
Check our guide on all the recipes in the game here: Recipe Guide for Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
Year 1: Juice
Best Recipe: Fruit Latte and Relaxation Tea
Accepted Recipes: Wild Grape Juice, Veggie Juice, Mixed Juice, Mixed Latte, Strawberry Milk, Tomato Juice, Pineapple Juice, Grape Juice
Year 2: Dessert
Best Recipe: Cake (any), Chocolate Cake, Cheesecake, Apple Pie
Accepted Recipes: Cheese Fondue, Savory Pancake, Pumpkin Pudding, Pudding, Apple Souffle, Ice Cream, Pancake, Candied Potato, Moon Dumpling, Chocolate Cookies, Cookies, Sweet Potatoes, Baked Sweet Potatoes
Year 3: Bread
Best Recipe: Sandwich
Accepted Recipes: Jam Bun, Dinner Roll, Raisin Bread, Curry Bread, Toast, French Toast
Year 4: Noodles
Best Recipe: Fried Noodles
Accepted Recipes: Noodles, Curry Noodles, Tempura Noodles, Fried Noodles, Noodles w/ Tempura
Year 5: Rice
Best Recipe: Fried Rice
Accepted Recipes: Mushroom Rice, Truffle Rice, Toasted Rice Ball, Rice Gruel, Tempura Rice, Egg Over Rice, Chirashi Sushi
Additional Tips
- Start collecting food for the next cooking festival, because some ingredients only grow during a specific season. For example, if you want to make a recipe that requires tomatoes or corn, plant them during summer and store some in your refrigerator for the festival.
- You can join the festival with the chocolate cake that you receive from the girls during the Winter Thanksgiving Festival. Make sure the category for the year is desserts before you use it.
- You don’t win anything from this festival, but it’s fun to join and you get to hang out with the other townspeople.
