What do Pikmin taste like? The professional opinion you’ve been waiting for

A few days ago, an interesting question was raised on the VG247 Slack. A very important question, actually. What do Pikmin taste like? With the same curious spark inside me that led me to add a dog nose to Oatchi earlier, I had to find out exactly what Pikmin 4’s cast of quirky half-plant, half-animal creatures would taste like.

spoiler alert; I didn’t eat any Pikmin. Sadly, I’m aware that these busy little workers aren’t real, and if they were, I wouldn’t know what planet to try to find them on (and you probably wouldn’t be able to grow up in Britain, anyway). However, I do have food-savvy friends (some really serious gourmand types) and as a result was able to enlist the expert opinion of two full-time chefs in my quest to determine what Pikmin would be like on the tongue. . This, after all, is the information we are all dying to know.

My close friend, Clarke, thinks that the red Pikmin “definitely tastes like radish”. This sentiment was actually backed up by another old friend and chef, Sam, who agreed that “red looks suspiciously like a radish.” Personally, I thought the red Pikmin looks like one of those Atomic Fireblast candies, or a pomegranate seed, if you’re more health conscious, but the chefs have spoken.

As for the other Pikmin, Clarke wasn’t so sure. “For yellow, I debate between saying Buddha’s finger, a lemon that has no fruit, or maybe a yellow chrysanthemum. I am puzzled by the blue. I feel like it has the crunchy snap of a vegetable, but natural blue food is rare.”

We then established that the purple Pikmin should taste like eggplant, but we were stumped by the blue Pikmin. Our other chef, Sam, shared that “the others, maybe a physalis, look attractive but are very bitter once you get into them.”

This is the first time I’ve heard of a physalis, but that’s chefs to you. Always playing with things that you’re pretty sure aren’t real. According to some research, physalis is distantly related to the tomato, potato, and eggplant family, so this particularly tart fruit seems to fit the bill as a Pikmin flavor. After all, it would make sense that all types of Pikmin food would be related.

So what have we learned on this whirlwind tour of the world of Nintendo-based fine dining? For starters (no pun intended), it sounds like Pikmin would make the perfect component in a salad, or feel right at home as a topping for a dessert. Would you eat a cake loaded with physalis-flavored yellow Pikmin? Sprinkle some radish-flavored Red Pikmin on your salad? Or do you cautiously eye the mysterious and haunting blue on the side of your plate before taking a tentative bite? I know I would.

If I didn’t think Pikmin are so adorable, I’d say cooking Pikmin would be a great new addition to activities in PNF-404. It’s probably not something Nintendo would consider though, right? It doesn’t really fit with their whole “family friendly” reputation. Now, I wonder what Oatchi would bring to the table…