The Food Merchant in Total War: Warhammer II
You might be asking how in the blue hell does Grom the Paunch get additional ingredient slots for his secret recipes? Well, the answer is the Food Merchant.
You’ll be notified whenever the Food Merchant appears in your Total War: Warhammer II campaign.
She’s usually near one of your settlements, and you can move a lord or hero there to start the interaction.
You’re then presented with a dilemma:
- Buy the Hag’s Carrion – Obtain the ingredient that’s listed on the panel; costs 1,000 gold.
- Let the Hag Cook – The Food Merchant cooks a random recipe in Grom’s Cauldron, replacing the one you already have.
- Daylight Robbery – Gain +50 scrap and +500 gold, but you won’t obtain an ingredient.
- Cook for the Hag – Challenge the Food Merchant to a cook-out.
Buying a listed ingredient is actually very useful in case you don’t think you’d be able to complete a certain task but you want to unlock the recipe as soon as possible. For instance, the Dragon Tail, Phoenix Claws, Ectoplasm, and Centigor Milk ingredients took a while for me to obtain for the Food Merchant challenge during my Total War: Warhammer II playthrough. Also, if you forgot to sack Karak Zorn, your best bet is to wait for the Stunty Ale to get sold by the Food Merchant, unless you want to travel all the way to Lustria to fight the Spine of Sotek Dwarfs.
Total War: Warhammer II – The Food Merchant’s challenges and unlocking additional ingredient slots
As for the “Cook for the Hag” choice, this lets you challenge the Food Merchant in Total War: Warhammer II. All you need to do is cook the correct recipe based on clues. If you successfully complete this challenge, you’ll unlock an extra ingredient slot for Grom’s Cauldron. Make sure to complete a couple of these since there are two slots that can be unlocked.
Below are a few Food Merchant challenges in Total War: Warhammer II that I’ve found during Grom the Paunch’s campaign, as well as those crowdsourced by Steam forum users:
| Food Merchant Dialogue | Combination | Clue | Result |
| “Mushy meats, mushy meats, mushy meats!” | Red + orange | Mushy meats simply means (mush)room and troll/lion/boar meat. | Shroom ‘n’ Offal Sausage |
| “Four-legged land-beasts pizza; no cold-blood meats!” | Yellow + orange | Have either Lion Meat or Boar Meat as the orange ingredient. Trolls are two-legged and lizards are cold-blooded, so they probably don’t count. | The Magnum Pizza |
| “Da richest quiche!” | Yellow + blue | Might require Goldfish as the blue ingredient, but not yet sure. See if any other blue ingredients work. | Gobbo Seafood Quiche |
| “Me loves a good pie! Any kind of pie!” | Yellow + orange, or Yellow + blue | There are two kinds of “pie” foods in the game. | The Magnum Pizza or Gobbo Seafood Quiche |
| “A burger stinky or spicy!” | Blue + Red | The red ingredient must be either Stinky Fungi (the “stinky” clue) or Hell Pepper ‘Shrooms (the “spicy” clue). | Fishy ‘Shroom Burgers |
| “Slurpy ‘n’ soupy, with hollow bones for crunch!” | Orange + green | The green ingredient should be Eagle Talons or Winged Leather. The clue here is the “hollow bones” part. Birds have hollow bones so the clue applies to “eagles” and “wings.” | Misty Mountain Broth |
| “A dish wot got big bones so I can pick ma teef. Fishbones by demselves too weak! No pizzas!” | Green + blue | I’m not yet sure if this will work with any blue “fish” ingredient since the clue states that fishbones by themselves are too weak. | Bony Meat Skewers |
| “Sumfink with fishy chunks.” | Any secret recipe (requires three ingredients), but one of those ingredients has to be a blue one. | Fishy Chunks pertain to blue ingredients. | Fried Squirrel Fish or Ghost Grab Royale secret recipes |
| “Sumfink with sporez or ‘shroomz!” | Any secret recipe (requires three ingredients), but one of those ingredients has to be a red one. | Sporez ‘n’ Shroomz pertain to red ingredients. | Mork’s Blood Pudding secret recipe |
| “Sumfink with beast bits! A dish wot needs three fings in it!” | Any secret recipe (requires three ingredients), but one of those ingredients has to be an orange one. | Beast Bits pertain to orange ingredients. | Bugman’s Battered Ribs secret recipe |
| “Sumfink with flyin’ gubbinz! A dish wot needs three things in it!” | Any secret recipe (requires three ingredients), but one of those ingredients has to be a green one. | Flyin’ Gubbinz pertain to green ingredients. | Elven Foie Gras secret recipe |
| “Sumfink with mucky stuff! A dish wot needs three fings in it!” | Any secret recipe (requires three ingredients), but one of those ingredients has to be a yellow one. | Mucky Stuff pertains to yellow ingredients. | Mork’s Blood Pudding or Bugman’s Battered Ribs secret recipes. |
Note: If the Food Merchant gave you other challenges, let us know so we can add them here and complete the full list.
Big-time buffs for the Big Gobbo
Once you’ve unlocked the remaining ingredient slots, you can have multiple active buffs plus the boosts from the recipes themselves. You can see a specific example below with Elven Foie Grass. I used Hell Pepper ‘Shrooms (red), Lizard Legs (orange), and Eagle Talons (the third ingredient to make the secret recipe), plus Goldfish (a bonus for the fourth slot). I’ve got all the buffs from each ingredient and the bonuses from the recipe, allowing me to recruit high-tier units like Rogue Idols and Anachronok Spiders within two turns:
| Elven Foie Grass | ||
| Recipe Buff: +4 recruit rank for all units; -2 turns global recruitment; +50 unit experience gain per turn (faction-wide) | ||
| Ingredient 1 (Red) | Hell Pepper ‘Shrooms | “Frenzy” passive for Goblin and Night Goblin units; +25% fire resistance |
| Ingredient 2 (Orange) | Lizard Legs | +15 armor and +8 leadership for Goblin cavalry, Goblin chariots, and Squig Herd units |
| Ingredient 3 (Secret) | Eagle Talons | “Eagle Sight” ammunition for Goblin and Night Goblin missile units; increased armor-piercing damage |
| Ingredient 4 (Bonus) | Goldfish | +10% income from all buildings; -1 global recruitment duration; +8 obedience (public order) in all provinces |
Total War: Warhammer II – The Warden & The Paunch is available on Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.
