A Meal and a Memory is a straightforward side quest in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, but it’s one that can feel overwhelming and confusing for players that haven’t quite gotten the hang of the Hunter’s Guide yet.
Your objective in this quest is simple—gather some ingredients and cook a meal, for which a story will be traded. The ingredients need to be Superior or better, however, meaning you must know the proper places to search for them.
How to start A Meal and a Memory
To start this side quest, head to the Na’vi Encampment known as The High Loom, which is in the center of Kinglor Forest above the Aranahe Home Tree. The main story line of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora will bring you to this encampment early on, so you should already have it unlocked as a fast travel point. If you don’t, you must first complete The Missing Hunter, which will bring you to The High Loom. If you have not yet completed The Missing Hunter, you cannot start A Meal and a Memory, so don’t bother trying to skip ahead by going to The High Loom before the story takes you there.
If you fast travel to The High Loom, you will spawn in on the raised platform built into a tree. Drop down, and find the Na’vi NPC named Sa’nop, who is located next to The High Loom’s Cooking Station. Speak with Sa’nop, and he will assign you A Meal and a Memory by explaining that he has a great recipe that he wants to teach you—however, you must gather the ingredients for the recipe yourself. To complete the side quest, you need to find a Crimson Mushroom and a Shell Fruit—both of which need to be of Superior or Exquisite quality.
How to find a Superior or Exquisite Crimson Mushroom
Of the two ingredients, Crimson Mushroom is the easier to locate, but neither should be very difficult. Pull up the Crimson Mushroom page in your Hunter’s Guide. If you don’t already have the page unlocked, speak with Sa’nop again. He will tell you where to find both ingredients, which in turn will unlock their respective Hunter’s Guide pages. Crimson Mushrooms grow all throughout Kinglor Forest, but their rare variants can only be found within the Swamp Lowlands Biome. Conveniently, the Swamp Lowlands are pretty much directly northwest of The High Loom, and you don’t have to walk far at all to reach them.
Make sure to use the Show Biomes feature on your map, and find the Swamp Lowlands just east of Tangled Lake. Place a custom marker anywhere in the center of the Swamp Lowlands so that you know where you’re headed, and walk about a kilometer out of The High Loom to reach the biome. Once you’re there, you should find that Crimson Mushrooms grow in plenty. Throughout the Swamp Lowlands, large tree roots protrude from the ground to form short natural bridges. Most often, Crimson Mushrooms will be found on top of these roots. Use your Na’vi Senses to ensure that you have found either a Superior (purple highlight) or Exquisite (gold highlight) variant, and then you are free to harvest a Crimson Mushroom. If you find an Exquisite Mushroom before a Superior one, great. However, for the purposes of this quest, there isn’t any reason to seek out an Exquisite Crimson Mushroom if you already have found a Superior One.
- Earn the Pristine Bonus by pulling the Crimson Mushroom towards the top-left portion of the circle.
- Earn the Conditions bonus by harvesting a Crimson Mushroom at night.
How to find a Superior or Exquisite Shell Fruit
Of the two ingredients needed to complete A Meal and a Memory, Shell Fruit is the trickier to gather, although not by much. Shell Fruit’s rare variants grow in the Thorny Wilds Biome, which is indicated with a muted purple color when you use Show Biomes on your map. If you started at the Swamp Lowlands to find a Crimson Mushroom, you will see that there is a Thorny Wilds Biome just north of your current location past the large stone arch that goes over Tangled Lake.
Once you’re inside of the Thorny Wilds, you can find Shell Fruits growing on the sides of large, thick trees which will have mushroom platforms that allow you to actually reach the Shell Fruit. However, gathering a Shell Fruit isn’t as simple as completing the harvesting mini-game. When you approach a Shell Fruit, you will see that there actually isn’t an option to harvest it, and that you begin taking damage. To harvest the Shell Fruit, you must first use a melee attack to destroy the fruits hard exterior. Afterward, you will be able to harvest Shell Fruit just like any other ingredient.
- Earn the Pristine gathering bonus by pulling Shell Fruit straight towards the bottom of the circle.
- Earn the Conditions bonus by harvesting Shell Fruit while it is raining.
Just like with Crimson Mushroom, there isn’t any real reason to search for an Exquisite Shell Fruit. If you find one before Superior, then have at it—but it won’t make any real difference in the end.
How to cook the dish in A Meal and a Memory
Once you have your Superior Crimson Mushroom and Superior Shell Fruit, you can head back to The High Loom. Right next to Sa’nep is a cooking station, which can be used to cook the dish required to complete A Meal and a Memory. The dish you need to make is called Mushroom and Fruit Salad—you should automatically have the recipe for it, and it will also be distinguished amongst your known recipes by a side quest icon.
When cooking the meal, it is important that you use Shell Fruit as the primary ingredient. If you select Crimson Mushroom as the primary ingredient, a different dish will be cooked, and you will then have to go back out and harvest the ingredients again.
- Use Shell Fruit as the main ingredient.
- Use Crimson Mushroom as the secondary ingredient.
After cooking a Mushroom and Fruit Salad, you will be prompted to sample the dish.
How to sample the dish and complete A Meal and a Memory
To “sample” the dish, all you need to do is find the newly cooked Mushroom and Fruit Salad in your food menu, and eat the meal. You will automatically end up eating the entire dish, but don’t worry—you don’t need to cook a second dish. After eating the salad, speak with Sa’nep again, and A Meal and a Memory will be completed.
A Meal and a Memory quest reward
When you speak with Sa’nep after eating the Mushroom and Fruit Salad, A Meal and a Memory will be completed. You will receive Sa’neps Bracelet as a reward, which is an Armguard Mod that increases all Clan Favor earned by 15 percent.
Sa’nep will also tell you a “story” in the form of a memory incited by the meal. I don’t want to spoil what that story is, as it’s a special and emotional little bit of Sarentu lore, but I highly recommend making sure you listen closely to Sa’nep’s dialogue after turning in A Meal and a Memory.
