I’m obsessed with Genshin Impact’s weird food loot

After running a few early Genshin Impact dungeons, I started noticing something peculiar. A good chunk of what I was picking up in Genshin Impact wasn’t weapons or gear. Instead, I was opening up chests and breaking up wooden rates and barrels only to find ... a head of cabbage.

Sometimes it’s a few carrots. Maybe a giant radish, or a lone potato spud. I’ve picked up enough dungeon wheat at this point to make a plush bale. I feel like I’m playing an adaptation of culinary-focused manga Delicious in Dungeon, and not a fantasy RPG about elemental gods.

To some degree, these food-based loot drops make sense. Genshin Impact has an elaborate cooking mechanic that allows you to whip up a line of delicacies that can heal and beef up your character. Characters can grant these concoctions special bonuses depending on who is cooking, and if you nail the associated mini-game, there’s a chance you’ll make more than one serving. Coupled with a “processing” mechanic, which asks you to wait actual time to refine base ingredients into more elaborate forms, Genshin Impact’s food gives players plenty to sink their teeth into.

Even so, the sheer amount of raw food I’ve picked up or seen lying around in dungeons has become hilarious. Why is the ancient deity dungeon suddenly littered with a cellar’s worth of wine bottles? At first, I thought maybe some adventurer got juiced on their dungeon crawl, but I’m starting to have some doubts. There’s a book you can find in Genshin Impact that says Hilichurl tribes “drink to excess and sing endless songs in praise” of the Anemo Archon. Maybe that could explain all the booze?

I was also baffled by all of the entire slabs of raw meat I kept finding within chests, but that too might be Hilichurl custom. “If there is leftover meat from the hunt, the Hilichurls place it on the altar, raw, as a sacrifice,” states a book within the game. At one point, you’re even asked to clear out a “Meaty” tribe that is fond of feasting. That’s well and good, except now I feel like I’m committing sacrilege when all I want is a sweet new sword.

Then again, that same book also says Hilichurls “do not intentionally store up food for survival,” so who knows why all these crates contain enough produce for a grocery store. Now every time a tomato or piece of chicken pops into the air after I investigate a shining object in a dungeon, I’ve learned to not question it. With a chuckle, I now just tell myself, well, Paimon will probably eat that.