So, I'm trying to get an overview of the enormous alternative produce we now can grow. Having Outdoor Retreat and a few more packs adds to the list. Most of my HoB households grow something, but I realize that it might be more interesting if they go diverse rather than having them all grow random stuff to fill their gardening plots.
When reading up on misc produce I find that ie OR herbs and mushrooms have certain effects on sims. Effects were designed for herbalism, but do anyone know whether those effect are still active when same produce is canned? Perhaps none of the OR herbs etc can be used un canning and new recipes, but I'm sure there are other ingredients that might come with certain effects when eaten plain.
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I have played with herbalism quite a lot and a number of my nature-loving sims are herbalists at a high level. All of the plants from OR are available for sale at the gardening stall/ shop. (The potions though do not seem be sellable at either the grocery or gardening stalls). However, I have not noticed though that they are available for canning or as ingredients in any of the food dishes from the new pack (Walleye Surprise, from OR, of course still requires Locust and Huckleberry, but it always did). I think the game sort of treats all of the harvestables from OR as herbs rather than as foods. This is disappointing because I would have loved the ability to make elderberry jam and elderberry pie, for instance.
Generally I love the addition of canning and the huge revamp they did to the ingredient system in the game (to the point where specific spices from City Living are now required for certain dishes -- it's great). But I wish sims could make more harvestables from the basegame into jams (cherry jam and lemon marmalade in particular) and that they were spreadable on every currently-existing bread in game. I also wish the new ingredients (like custard and mayonnaise) were useable in more dishes as required ingredients. (Considering all the wonderful trifles and desserts there are in England that use custard, for instance, it shouldn't just be an ingredient in Animal treats). Oh well, maybe they will add a toaster some day, and then maybe more jams will be added, and sims will also be able to spread jams on all kinds of bread.
The herbalism potions from OR are still really powerful, and seem to hold up against later systems in subsequent packs; they continue to work well on the sims themselves, especially the ones that remove long-lasting mood buffs like the Sadness Allevation Lotion, De-Stressing Concoction, and Rage Relieving Salve. The Tummy Therapy elixir works really well on Squeamish sims, morning sickness and even after eating bad food, while the herbicide remains the best weed killer in the game, and the Insect Repellent works on all insects in the game, including those from JR and SE. So I still think Herbalism is an extremely useful skill in the context of later packs and especially CL.
As for cross-pack compatibility, for some mysterious reason the local sims in HoB seem to like to make De-Stressing Concoction on the outdoor barbecue on my sims' lot and leave jars around as presents. They now have dozens of these jars in their inventories and in the fridges. It's a low-level potion, so I guess it is easy to make, but one bonus is that it completely removes tense buffs, and my sims seem to get stressed quite a lot while working on the farm so that is a great help. Another bonus is that sometimes these local visitors are interrupted and leave an incomplete pot of this potion bubbling on the stove or grill. Both my sim parents in my current save have gained up to level 3 of the herbalism skill just completing these half-finished potions.
I really should dive more into the herbalism skill. I love the OR but playing on rotation, the few herbalists in my game hardly ever find anything to harvest when they go to the forest, because plants take more than a day to produce, or I go there in the wrong season. I like that we have all these possibilities, and I really think it's time I specialize more of my households. Perhaps one household can grow herbs to make herbal stuff to sell to local farmers. I can always arrange for paying outside the game. Maybe even one house can grow herbs, and another cooks them. That might make the quantum bigger.
Still busy preparing the new lots, but will soon be ready for general playing
It will be easier to get the OR plants for use in the remedies now without having to go to Granite Falls for a camping weekend during the Summer. (By the way, there is no point in going in the Fall or Winter, because nothing grows then, and only a few of the plants are also available in Spring; Summer is the best for foraging and camping trips as well). Anyway, you can buy all the OR plants (in rotation) at the Gardening Stall in HoB, which will save your having to search for hours and find them in the woods at 5 am in morning. The insects will still be an issue for certain potions, but I admit to cheating and getting them from Debug sometimes (it's just so darn hard to find some of the rarer types). I haven't checked but maybe someone has put a room of them all up on the gallery too.
I have never done the herbalism skill, it looks like I am missing out on some good stuff.
*resolves to use herbalism very soon*
Rosetta Stone · Sona Ali
Confirmation I'm just a heathen. 🤪
My Sims have made fizzy drinks from all of the new berries in HoB - the only thing is, the fizzy drinks can't be sold in either of the town stores. I haven't tried Plopsy yet; maybe tomorrow.
I like the décor value and all, but would there really be a point spending hours on preserving the bigger quantum? I was thinking that because strawberries grow only in Spring, it would be wise preserving some to use in Summer, Fall and Winter. But why bother, if the berries stay fresh in the fridge year round?
Right now I wish all fresh food would spoil...
I know. And why can something only to eat it from the jar and barely fill the hunger meter when you can cook a meal that fills you up?
Yes.
The fish goes if you keep it in the fridge too long. Wish that would happen to veggies as well. At least when you have the Simple Living lot-trait.
I use the yard sale table for the fizzy drinks, beeswax and honey. 300% markup. I got this idea from a another simmer here. Even more fun to do with this EP. Oh and you can get more money for the llama wool.
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My sims surely need to vary their recipes a bit more, I tend to cook the same stuff no matter what house I play. Would be cool if each household had a set up of 5-10 favorite recipes
There are rooms of the insects. I made a hospital/mall for OS, and downloaded some others rooms, one was the insects from GF. I have also noticed you can download the GF plants too, and the herbalism concoctions from the gallery too.
Yes, with Simple Living flour, sugar and eggs are required for most of the baking recipes.
They haven't adjusted any old recipes to include CoL ingredients apart from the challenge, without it you won't need flour to “cook” a birthday cake either or meat to make a roast chicken. Ingredients make sense only with challenge enabled.
Yupp, that makes sense
The gallery is indeed a fantastic resource for those hard-to-find things. I recently upgraded libraries with all skill books and I always start my gardeners with all flowers, fruit & veg.
De-stressing concoction is a result of one of the Eco NAPs, I forgot which one exactly. For some reason, the NAPs are very active even though I have voting turned off in my game and none are enforced. That might be the case in your game too.
1) The new oversized crops do spoil.
2) The finished products from canning are worth more than the raw ingredients, so canning is a way to make money faster.
3) It's a good way to separate ingredients out. E.g., if you know you need/want to make a chocolate pie for some reason in the next day or two, but you want to make a fruit salad in the meantime, making the chocolate syrup first ensures that you won't accidentally use the chocoberries randomly instead of something else.