Culinary Horizons

Culinary Horizons is a major expansion to the culinary world of Valheim. My aim is to follow the principles that Valheim and its developers have created, but introduce my own additions and crafting routes that add to the cooking experience in Valheim. The core pillars of this mod are satisfying processing and crafting routes, powerful foods and bonuses, and high quality models.

Here's a small sneak peek of what to expect from this mod

The Spice Grinder

Grind and Blend new exotic spices to suit all your culinary needs.

The Alloy Furnace

Create Unique new alloys, combining metals from the 10th realm of Valheim.

📘 Culinary Horizons in-depth guide and stats sheet

This included crafting recipes, prefab IDs for spawning through the console and additional developer notes:

Discover other mods from the Distant Origins Team:

- 3 New crafting stations

- 3 New Processors

- 7 Station Extensions

- 3 Farm Extensions

- 4 New Creature Drops

- 16 New Crafting Materials

- 22 Enhanced Foods

- 17 Forgotten Recipes

- 5 Banquets

- 12 Food Combo Bonuses

The 3 crafting stations focus on the 3 core stages of cooking progression in this mod:

• The Spice Table – Where you can craft a variety of spices to season base game dishes and enhance them.

• The Elderwok – Forged with a resistant alloy, this station will be where you craft powerful Forgotten Recipes using Enhanced Foods as the ingredients.

• The Bronzewood Banquet Bench – Equipped with all the tools and cutlery a chef could need, this station acts as the final tier of food progression, allowing you to craft Banquets, each with their own powerful buff effect.

Culinary Horizons add 3 new Farm Extensions

• Farm Extensions are new build pieces that act as extensions to any farm the player makes, no matter its shape or size. They improve various aspects such as Growth Speed and Bonus Drop Chance.

• The Water Trough - Unlocked in the Blackforest, the Water Trough increases crop growth rate by 20% in a 40 meter radius.

• The Tool Rack - Unlocked in the Mountains, the Tool Rack also increases crop growth rate by 20% in a 40 meter radius.

• The Spinning Mill - Unlocked in the Mistlands, the Spinning Mill increases crop growth rate by 15% and Bonus Drop Chance by 10%.

• These extensions can stack with each other, however they cannot stack with themselves, so building 10 of one type of farm extension will give the same improvement as 1.

• The Spice Grinder – An efficient and satisfying grinder for converting raw spice mixes crafted at the Spice Table into spice piles ready to be added to food.

• The Alloy Furnace – A personal favourite of mine, this furnace will smelt alloy scraps (crafted at the Forge) into ingots that will be used in processors, stations and their extensions.

• The Jarls Hearth – The oven used to cook advanced recipes from the Plains onwards.

• Culinary Horizons adds a layer of progression in its materials, with spices being grouped into Common Spices and Elite Spices. Common Spices are used in crafting Enhanced Foods and Forgotten Recipes.

• Elite spices are used to craft every Banquet found in this mod.

• This mod also currently adds new creature drops, such as Forest Hearts and Smoking Ectoplasm, and 2 new alloy metals, Dokkborn and Glaesfir, that are key to crafting the various stations and processors.

New Item Type - Loot Bags

• Loot Bags are a new type of consumable item that give a random selection of items when used. Currently there are 2 Loot Bags, the Giants Pouch and Berserker Bag, which give the player a selection of meats, providing an alternative way for players to gather ingredients. As Culinary Horizons is updated, more Loot Bags will be added in a variety of forms.

Culinary Horizons food progresses in 3 tiers for each biome:

• Enhanced Foods - act as effectively 'Vanilla+' foods, combining base game foods with various spices for a small increase in Health, Stamina and Eitr compared to before.
• Forgotten Recipes - using Enhanced Foods in their recipes, Forgotten Recipes offer 3 core improvements: higher health regen, long lifetimes and high stats.
• Banquets - the final stage of a culinary progression, using Forgotten Recipes as ingredients, Banquets' primary benefit over the previous tier is the powerful buff effects that they provide. Each Banquet has its own effect that has a long lifetime and will define your playstyle.

Culinary Horizons also introduces new cooking mechanics such as:

• Two Stage Cooking, where foods cooked at a cooking rack or oven can have 2 output products depending on how long they are left to cook.

• Food Combos, which work like set bonuses for foods, where eating certain foods together will give you unique buffs that are active for as long as the required foods are eaten together.

Special thanks to:

• Dreanegade — for guiding and teaching me throughout the modding process as well as inspiring me to start when I first saw his mods in early 2025, and for being a close friend who I value greatly. ❤️

and

• Warp — for also getting me into modding and teaching me core parts about Unity, in addition to being a talented and positive member of the modding community.
• Hugo The Dwarf — for insights and personal guidance for various questions I've had.
• Xutz - for inspiring me with their fantastic food mod to make my own

Mods I recommend:

• The Distant Origins series by Dreanegade — The quality and variety of these mods quickly made them some of my favourite mods to use.

• NorseDemigods by Alpus — While this mod might need a difficulty mod paired alongside it, the visuals, new combat mechanics and crafting of this mod is unique and incredible to play with.

• More World Locations AIO by Warp — A mod that almost anyone who plays Valheim will enjoy, Warp has put a lot of effort into both the unique gameplay additions it brings, as well as ensuring it is well optimised for all playthroughs.

💬 Mod Support & Feedback:

Please feel free to share any feedback or suggestions on my shared Discord (and check out the Distant Origins series of mods):

👉 Join the Distant Origins Discord

Paid mods and Monetisation Usage:

I created this mod for the everyone to enjoy, no matter their situation. Do not paywall any part of this mod under any circumstance or as Catharis said:

I will find you

I’m more than happy to work with people and help them out and share what I've learnt while making Culinary Horizons, but there will not be any paywalls associated with this mod.

This initial release doesn't cover all the way until the end of a playthrough, I wanted to release this mod as it is now to get feedback on what people enjoy and don't enjoy. I want to make each expansion tailored to player feedback; as well as feel like a major update adding a wide amount of impactful content that adds to the mod and your experience as the player. ❤️

The Grand Expansion Update (1/3 Complete)

• Spices, Enhanced foods, Forgotten Recipes and Banquets for Mistlands and Ashlands
• Station Extensions for Mistlands and Ashlands
• Custom visual effects for each Banquet buff effect

Major Surprise Update

• New classes of ?
• Custom ?
• New station

The Meads & Wines Update

• New Stations
• New Processor
• Common and Forbidden Meads and Wines

The Pantry Update

• Trophy Foods - Gain Traits of the Creature used
• Distant Recipes - Purchase a key item from Haldor to build a station for foods from other cultures
• Fish Foods - Hybrid foods with standout buffs
• Kakó Food Tree - A unique progression of foods using the Kakó Mix
• Boss drops and boss banquets - Banquets that make you an avatar of the respective boss

1.0.42 (Small Hotifx)

Fixes:

• Added missing sfx to Spice Grinder so that it is able to be destroyed and not duplicate building materials (Thank you Doghunter!)

1.0.41 (Performance Hotfix)

Quality of Life:

• Added Vietnamese to the list of translations available for Culinary Horizons thanks to the help of QuânKha (Zono)!!
• Updated Translations for all new prefabs inclduing farm extensions

Fixes:

• Fixed issue where code scanning for crops in an area also scanned any build piece as well every 10 seconds, resulting in a stutter and general performance degradation, especially in large bases (Huge Thank you to TomLov and Talf for informing me and helping with debugging)
• Fixed Charred Lox Meat not having an icon in the serving tray menu (Thanks Talf for spotting this!)

1.0.4 (Farm and Creature Drop Additions)

New Content:

• 3 New build pieces to improve your farms:
  • Water Trough ~ increases growth speed of crops by 20 % in a 40 Meter radius (Stacks with pieces other than itself)
  • Tool Rack ~ increases growth speed of crops by 20 % in a 40 Meter radius (Stacks with pieces other than itself)
  • Spinning Mill ~ increases growth speed of crops by 15 % in a 40 Meter radius (Stacks with pieces other than itself)
• New creature drops:
  • Giants Pouch ~ A giant pouch that can drop from a troll when defeated, can be opened once like a present to give you a random collection of raw boar, deer and bear meats
  • Berzerkers Stash ~ Similar to the Giants Pouch, this drops from Fuling Berzerkers and contains a collection of wolf, bear and lox meats
• 1 New and final station extension for the Elderwok:
  • Forgotten cookbooks
• 1 New Food Combo
  • Fiery Courage ~ a combination of the 3 Ashlands Forgotten Recipes which gives + 25 % adrenaline gain, and a 25 % resistance to Fire, Frost, Poison and Lightning damage
• 2 New Forgotten Recipes, completing the full Forgotten Recipe line all the way to the Ashlands
  • Exotic meats ~ Health focus
  • Smoked Salad ~ Stamina focus
• 1 New Banquet, for a total of 5 Banquets added in Culinary Horizons:
  • Roots and Shoots Platter ~ Stamina focus

New Features:

• The Bronzewood Banquet Bench now adds a comfort level of + 2 in a 20 Meter radius
• Loot Bag system: a new loot bag system that will be expanded in the future with new items that will be found or bought and act as a alternative way to gather some resources with a bit of random luck

Balance Tweaks:

Food Combos

• Boars Blessing has been buffed to raise your movement speed further:
  • Movement speed 5 % --> 10 %
• Sweetened Sensation has had a buff to its restoration as well as a flat increase of stamina:
  • Stamina regen 10 % --> 20 %
  • NEW Stamina + 15
• Bubbly Invigoration has had a further reduction to attack and stamina use:
  • Run and attack stamina use - 15 % --> - 25 %
• Frozen Harness now protects you more from falls:
  • Fall damage - 20 % --> - 40 %
• Hunters Score gives additional health:
  • NEW Health + 25
• Misty Solitude grants increased regeneration across the board:
  • Health, Stamina and Eitr Regen + 20 % --> + 25 %

Banquets

• Elders Infused Sap now pushes your adrenaline further:
  • Adrenaline Gain + 25 % --> + 35 %

Quality of Life:

• Reduced the size of the Spice Table and its extensions based on feedback
• Retextured parts of the Spice Grinder
• Added Elderwok station requirement to the Obsidian Kitchen Equipment, Shamans Pots and Sharpened Carapace Razors to make it clearer which table they improve

Fixes:

• Fixed vanilla lox meat not being able to be placed on the iron cooking rack, preventing players from cooking standard lox meat.
• Actually increased the duration of the Fish skewer from 20 --> 25 minutes
• Cleaned up extension connection effect alignment for a few of the spice table extensions

1.0.3 (New Content, QoL and Bugfix update)

New Features:

Combo Bonuses:

• Forgotten Recipes now have Combo Bonuses, which work like armour set effects, where by combining specific combinations will give you buffs for as long as those foods are eaten together

Balance Tweaks:

Items

• The Serving Tray now takes more resources to craft:
  • 10 Wood + 2 Bronze -> 15 Finewood + 5 Bronze

Stations

• The Elderwok has had a reduction in its Dokkborn cost:
  • Dokkborn 12 -> 8

Processors

• The Spice Grinder has been upgraded to process spices faster than ever, as well as now costing less bronze and more forest hearts to craft:
  • 1 Spice / 4s ---> 1 Spice / 2s
  • Bronze: 20 -> 5
  • Forest Hearts: 5 -> 8

Spices

• Spices have had their costs adjusted to make it easier to craft the common spice of a biome, with the elite spice using the more expensive materials:
• Giants Seasoning:
  • Thistle 2 -> 1
• Surtling Cinders:
  • Ooze 0 -> 2
  • Turnip Seeds 2 -> 0
• Marshmas:
  • Turnip Seeds 0 -> 2
  • Ooze 2 -> 0
• Frosted Powder:
  • Wolf Fangs 0 -> 4
  • Onion Seeds 4 -> 0
• Vindfros:
  • Onion Seeds 0 -> 2
  • Wolf Fangs 2 -> 0
• Crackling Flakes:
  • Cloudberries 0 -> 2
  • Barley 2 -> 0
• Solakras:
  • Barley 0 -> 2
  • Cloudberries 2 -> 0
• Sorrowful Cinders:
  • Smoke Puffs 3 -> 2
  • Vine Berries 2 -> 1
• Alvmas:
  • Fiddleheads 2 -> 1

Enhanced Foods

• Seasoned Carrots, Mushrooms, Turnips and Onions will now be crafted in a 2 to 1 ratio with the relavant spice
• Seasoned Sausages will now be crafted in a 4 to 1 ratio with spice, matching the amount of standard sausages made at the cauldron
• Roasted and Charred Lox meat have had a slight reduction in their primary stats:
  • Roasted Lox Meat: 75 Health -> 72 Health
  • Charred Lox Meat: 75 Stamina -> 72 Stamina

Forgotten Recipes

• Marbled Mixed Meats now takes less seasoned cooked boar meat to craft:
  • Seasoned Cooked Boar Meat 3 -> 2
• Berry Braised Boar has had a reduction to the amount of Queens Jam required to craft:
  • Queens Jam 3 -> 2
• Aged Cured Meats have had a reduction in boar meat used in crafting:
  • Seasoned Cooked Boar Meat 2 -> 1
• Swampy Stew now takes less guck to craft:
  • Guck 3 -> 2

Quality of Life:

• Properly made LODs apply to the steam effects given off by placed foods as well as certain models to improve performance overall
• Added to the desciptions of exotic spices so its clearer that they are used only used for Banquets
• Chinese translation added thanks to GoodTer and their work translating the mod!

Fixes:

• Dokkborn now costs 2 Iron Scraps rather than bars (Thanks Flowki for spotting this!)
• Fish skewer no longer doesn't display a shield (missing icon) in a players inventory and at the cauldron (Thank you Krystorr and Beatus for reporting this!)
• Actually reduced the Pine Smoked Vegetables pine cone cost to 1
• Actually reduced the cost of the Mixed Dough Platter so it no longer uses flour as well as 1 less Seeded Bread Dough (Thanks Saber!)
• Added collider to seeded bread dough so it no longer falls through the floor and couldn't be picked up (Thank you Probablykory for reporting this!)
• Fixed texture of molten metal inside of the Alloy Furnace turning pink when smelting (Thanks Cinder!)
• Smoking Ectoplasm now actually requires a level 2 Elderwok to be unlocked

1.0.2 (New Content, QoL and Bugfix update)

New Content:

• 1 New Enhanced Food
• 2 New Forgotten Recipes

New Features:

• Players can now interact with placed foods, doors, stations, etc while having a serving tray, hammer, cultivator, or any utility item equipped

• Two stage cooking for soaked lox meat and the tarred plains pies, depending on how long they are cooked for, they will go from uncooked -> cooked -> charred, which flips the foods stats

  This also means these foods cannot be burnt so you can leave them to cook and do something else without worrying

Balance Tweaks:

Enhanced Foods

• Fish skewer has had a increase to its duration:
  • Duration: 20 minutes -> 25 minutes
• Roasted and Charred Lox meat have had their health and stamina values reduced:
  • Roasted Lox Meat: 80 Health -> 75 Health
  • Charred Lox Meat: 80 Stamina -> 75 Stamina

Forgotten Recipes

• Mixed Dough Platter has had a cost reduction across the board:
  • Seeded Bread Dough: 4 -> 3
  • Barley Flour: 4 -> 0 (as it's used in the doughs)

Banquets

• Pine Smoked Celebration has had the number of pine cones required reduced:
  • Pine Cones: 3 -> 1

Quality of Life:

• Banquets now display their status effects in the crafting menu of their respective stations, allowing you to see what they give you before crafting
• The serving tray can now be crafted at a level 1 Workbench for 10 Wood and 2 Bronze, allowing players to place banquets from the Blackforest before going to the Swamp
• Forest hearts can now be crafted at a level 1 Elderwok for 2 Bukeberries, 2 Blueberries and 1 Greydwarf eye
• Smoking Ectoplasm can now be crafted at a level 2 Elderwok for 3 Ectoplasm and 1 Surtling Core

Fixes:

• Spice table no longer turns pink when it becomes damaged (thank you Kronduster and Leslie!)
• Spice table now has sound effect when items finish crafting while using it
• Minor mod page changes
• Minor item description fixes

1.0.1 (Part 1 / 3 of the Grand Expansion Update)

New Content:

• 8 New Enhanced Foods up to the Ashlands
• 3 New Forgotten Recipes covering the Mistlands
• 1 New Banquet, to make the total 3 for the Blackforest and 1 for the Swamps
• 2 New Spices for the Ashlands
• 1 New Elderwok extension
• 1 New Spice Table extension

Balance Tweaks:

• Alloys have had their weights reduced:
  • Dokkborn: 22 -> 16
  • Glaesfir: 24 -> 18
• Fish skewer has had a reduction to its stamina and duration:
  • Stamina: 12 -> 5
  • Duration: 30 minutes -> 20 minutes

Fixes:

• Enhanced Foods and Forgotten Recipes categories in the serving tray UI now display correctly
• Vanilla Bread can be cooked in the stone oven again (yay)
• Minor mod page spelling corrections
• Elderwok should no longer be able to potentially disable hearths when placed on

1.0.0

• Release