Mystery Food X

Mystery Food X is an ongoing gag in the Persona series. It first appears in Persona 4 and later makes an appearance as an item in Persona 4 Arena.

Profile

Mystery Food X makes its first appearance during the June plot of Persona 4 when Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi decide to cook curry for themselves, the protagonist, and Yosuke Hanamura for their school camping trip. During the shopping trip to Junes, the protagonist observes how neither of them knows how to make curry, they do not know what to put in the curry, and they never consult a recipe. Yukiko assumes they need high gluten strong flour normally used for bread because they need to make food for boys^[1]^[a] resulting in a purple substance that Yosuke dubs Mystery Food X.

After this incident, every cooking disaster made by or influenced by Chie, Yukiko, and later Rise Kujikawa becomes a type of Mystery Food X.

Gameplay

Persona 4

When faced with Mystery Food X on June 17th, choosing "Eat it" increases the protagonist's Social Link points with Chie and Yukiko each by +5. This requires Courage rank 4.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Mystery Food X is one of Teddie's items that he can throw on the field. It restores HP, but also inflicts Silence, Poison, and Fear when either player touches it.

Game Appearances

Persona 4

During the shopping trip to Junes on June 16th, Chie and Yukiko buy carrots, potatoes, onions, bell peppers, maitake mushrooms, and butterbur. After talking about making the curry thicken, they add potato starch and hard bread flour. Next is chili pepper, kimchi, white and black pepper so it will be spicy. For something special to help the flavor, Chie picks a chocolate she likes and coffee milk, and Yukiko adds seafood for the broth.^[b] When Yosuke tries it on June 17th, he describes it as simultaneously being gritty, syrupy, and spongy. When the protagonist tries it, he describes it as inedible, spits it out, then collapses. Afterwards, Yosuke dubs the creation Mystery Food X.

To celebrate Mitsuo Kubo's arrest, the Investigation Team offers to cook dinner for Nanako, who asks for omelette fried rice. Yosuke thinks that with something so simple, the girls will not have a repeat of Mystery Food X. He very quickly gets concerned when all three of them split off into different areas of the grocery store despite making the same dish, and instead helps the protagonist shop to make his own.

When the Investigation Team, Dojima, and Nanako celebrate Christmas on December 25th, the girls make a Christmas cake, which Yosuke pre-emptively calls the Christmas Edition of Mystery Food X. Kanji tries to make sure it is edible before Nanako eats it. Still, Nanako takes a bite first, and calls it delicious, much to the protagonist, Yosuke, and Kanji's confusion. Everyone else tries it and finds it delicious. Chie thinks this means they have cooking talent after all, but Naoto reveals this was their third attempt.

Persona 4 Golden

While on the February skiing trip, Yosuke yells at Rise that the Christmas Cake was only good because Naoto was there to help. Rise claims it was actually because of a cookbook.

On Valentine's Day, Nanako presents the protagonist with homemade chocolate that the other girls on the Investigation Team gave her advice for. She used coffee milk and bacon, inspired by Chie; bell pepper, green vegetable juice, black vinegar, and ponzu sauce, inspired by Rise; plus fish sausage and her dad's squid fermented in guts, inspired by Yukiko. Naoto had offered to let Nanako use a cookbook, but Nanako was already done by the time Naoto got back to her. After Nanako tells the protagonist that she loves him, he sees no other option but to eat it, and taking one bite causes him to collapse.