Spinach
Spinach is a type of food in NetHack that appears in select tins.
Contents
Generation
1⁄6 of randomly generated tins, including any generated in the starting inventory of a Tourist, will contain spinach.
General stores, delicatessens and health food stores can sell tins of spinach, and health food store tins in particular will convert tins of non-vegetarian food to spinach.[1]
Description
A tin of spinach is vegan and confers nutrition and additional effects dependent on its beatitude: a blessed tin grants 600 nutrition and increases strength, while an uncursed tin grants 401-600 nutrition and increases strength, and a cursed tin grants 201-600 nutrition and decreases strength.[2] The exact amount of strength increase depends on the character's current strength:[3]
| Current strength | Gain |
|---|---|
| 17 or less |
|
| 18–18/84 |
|
| 18/85 or more |
|
Strategy
Spinach tins are a solid source of strength gains for characters, especially Monks and others observing vegan or vegetarian conducts: they are also lower in nutrition than giant corpses while taking only 1 turn to eat, and non-cursed spinach is guaranteed to grant a strength increase unless the character wears a ring of sustain ability. Though spinach is a quicker and less-filling meal than a giant corpse (leaving more room for additional spinach), it also poses a choking hazard to an already-satiated character since there is no chance to interrupt the meal.
If you are lucky enough to come across a health food shop (and we mean VERY lucky, as health foods shops make up 2% of any generated shop), it is a good idea to prioritise buying as many tins from those shops as possible, as they will all contain spinach.
History
Spinach appears as a food item in Hack 1.21, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and appears in Hack 1.0 as the potential contents of a tin, and can randomly increase strength in both appearances.
The messages for eating a tin of spinach while wearing a ring of sustain ability are added in NetHack 3.6.2.
Origin
The effects of spinach in NetHack and the messages produced are based on the Popeye series of comics and cartoons featuring the titular character, who gains incredible strength after eating spinach: Olive Oyl is generally portrayed as Popeye's love interest, while Bluto is Popeye's rival both for Olive's affections and in general, and Swee'pea is Popeye's adoptive child.
Messages
- It contains some decaying <green> substance.
- You opened a cursed tin of spinach, with the color noted only if you are not blind.[4]
- This makes you feel like Popeye!
- You ate a tin of spinach and gained strength from it.
- This makes you feel like Swee'pea!
- As above, but while hallucinating.
- This makes you feel like Olive Oyl!
- As a female character, you ate a noncursed tin of spinach while wearing a ring of sustain ability.
- This makes you feel like Bluto!
- As above, but for a male character.
Variants
EvilHack
In EvilHack, giant characters gain more strength on average from spinach and other strength-boosting food due to their much higher strength cap.
