Food ration
A food ration is the most basic form of comestible that appears in NetHack. Samurai know them as gunyoki, which is likely to not be real-life Japanese.[1]
Contents
Generation
Many roles start out with a number of these:
- Archeologists and Monks start with 3 to 6 rations.[2][3]
- Barbarians and Valkyries start with 1-2.[4][5]
- Tourists start with a lot of random food, some of which may be food rations.[6]
Description
Food rations provide 800 nutrition when eaten, which is more than enough for most states of hunger. They are also suitable for vegans, and may be thrown at cats or dogs to tame them.
Cursed food rations are always rotten when eaten. Uncursed food rations older than 30 turns and blessed food rations older than 50 turns have a 1⁄7 chance of being rotten when eaten.
Strategy
A lembas wafer provides similar nutrition while weighing much less, though it may provide more or less depending on if you are playing an elven or orcish character. Players that make it to the mid-game may pass up food rations in favor of sustaining themselves on the corpses of monsters they kill and/or stocking up on C-rations or K-rations they nab from soldiers.
History
Food rations have been a part of the game since hack121, a variant of Jay Fenlason's Hack.
Encyclopedia entry
Food ration
The little girl stood on tip-toe and picked one of the nicest and biggest lunch-boxes, and then she sat down upon the ground and eagerly opened it. Inside she found, nicely wrapped in white papers, a ham sandwich, a piece of sponge-cake, a pickle, a slice of new cheese and an apple. Each thing had a separate stem, and so had to be picked off the side of the box; but Dorothy found them all to be delicious, and she ate every bit of luncheon in the box before she had finished.
[ Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum ]
Gunyoki
The samurai's last meal before battle. It was usually made up of cooked chestnuts, dried seaweed, and sake.