Food

Food is a healing pickup item in Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove and Pocket Dungeon used to restore hit points, and one of the three main types of items commonly found in Stages alongside Treasures and Jars. Multiple varieties of food exist, each one restoring a specific amount of Health or increasing Health Capacity.

Treasure Trove[]

Restorative Food[]

Chickens and Apples are normally found on a lidded silver platter or dropped by particularly bulky enemies, while the Carrots are instead usually found in specific dig piles. Upon death, any previously collected food source which had a fixed location will respawn where it was originally found. Any food source that was not originally out in the open when first found (being dropped by enemies, pulled out from a platter...), will eventually blink out of existence if not collected quickly.

In Specter of Torment, these food items appear as rotten version of regular meals: Chicken bones, apple cores and shriveled carrots. They still heal Specter Knight due to his own undead nature. During the Memory stages Specter Knight's past self, Donovan, will find and eat regular food just like the other playable knights. However, since the appearance cast by the Donovan Set is nothing but an illusion, while wearing it Specter Knight will still find and eat rotten food. For consistency with the other playable characters available, in Showdown and Pocket Dungeon Specter Knight's life is referred to as normal Health instead of Will, and as such in Showdown only normal Food will show up and heal Specter Knight, instead of the decayed counterparts that appear in Specter of Torment.

If King Knight tries to open a food platter using the spinning motion of his Shoulder Bash, an unscrewing animation will play until the lid flies off the platter. To avoid putting him in a vulnerable position, this animation does not appear in Showdown.

Trouts can be fished out in Shovel of Hope using the Fishing Rod. They come in 3 different sizes, and among useless garbage, can be fished in regular, non-sparkling pits. This makes the Fishing Rod extremely useful in New Game Plus where food is scarce. This does not work when fishing with the Bait Bomb either in Plague of Shadows or when using Custom Knight. Fishing in a sparkling pit will instead either result in hooking up a friendly Troupple, or a Golden Fish, which acts as Treasure instead of Food. In Specter of Torment and King of Cards, Specter Knight and King Knight can also find and eat regular trouts which are rewarded in large quantities upon the defeat of large piscine enemies, such as the Teethalon and the Lunkeroth.

Also, in Shovel of Hope, the use of an Ichor of Fortune will magnetize any food in range towards Shovel Knight, while wearing the Armor of Chaos will transform any food source into green orbs that naturally home in towards him. Similarly, in Plague of Shadows, Plague Knight can use the Treasure Trappings to magnetize any food or health tonic towards him while charging a Bomb Burst.

Should Shovel Knight not eat any food source during one stage, including the Ichor of Renewal, he will be rewarded with the Feat On a Diet.

In New Game Plus, all food dropped by enemies and found in platters, with the exception of some during the Battle Royale, are replaced with Platter Bombs, with only the carrots remaining unchanged, making healing items much more difficult to come by.

Also, in Specter of Torment's New Game Plus, Specter Knight's Will and Darkness are combined into a single meter that is constantly draining on its own, and due to this, collected Jars and tufts of Darkness act like a makeshift extra food source. Meanwhile, the food found in the memories remain unaltered and are not replaced by a bomb.

Special Food[]

In the Village in Shovel of Hope, the Gastronomer serves special kinds of foods on lidded golden platters in exchange for a Meal Ticket. These foods permanently increase Shovel Knight's Health Capacity by two points.

Similarly, King Knight's Mom in King of Cards serves Hearty Meat Pies in exchange for gold that permanently increase his Health Capacity by one point. Once on board the Glidewing, she also serves Vigor Cream Pies in exchange for Merit Medals that permanently increase King Knight's Vigor Capacity by ten points.

Exclusive to Showdown is the Chicken Wings, an elusive food that can be found in a platter, with the same properties of a Chicken roast, with the exception that its wings makes it erratically roam the arena, making it more difficult to acquire.

Furthermore in Percy's Targets, sometimes food platters with flashing rainbow colors will appear; these platters don't contain food, but they will instead act as a Bonus Target, safely clearing out any other target at the same time. Any regular Food eaten restores 2 seconds to the countdown.

Food Restorative Values[]

Type	Hit points restored
Chicken/Chicken Bones	20 (full)
Apple/Apple Core	6
Carrot/Rotten Carrot	4
Big Trout	16
Trout	8
Small Trout	2

Trivia[]

If Shovel Knight or Plague Knight fish in the Troupple Pond they will reel in a large cluster of apples as well as a Music Sheet.
With the Fishing Rod Shovel Knight can occasionally reel in apple cores, but unlike for Specter Knight, they are useless for him.

Pocket Dungeon[]

“	Restores 10 HP.	”

The plated Chicken makes a reappearance as an item and unlike in Treasure Trove, it is known as a Turkey. It heals for 10 hit points, easily capable of fully healing the playable knight. Since it heals 5 times more than Potions, turkeys are much rarer and doesn't appear as much, unless certain special hats are equipped.

However, thanks to the Conjuring Cupcake, some blocks can be turned in various types of cakes, offering yet another way to replenish health.

Impacting Relics[]

The Potion Napkin removes the chaining effect on Turkeys and allows them to be collected individually, avoiding wasting more food than necessary when chaining them; it may however lead to knights being crushed by too many units, so caution is advised.
The Zesty Slice makes Turkeys restore more HP. Additionally, it keeps Specter Knight from getting hurt when collecting Turkeys while playing his main ability (see the section below). It also makes Turkeys deal more damage points when detonated with Mona's main ability.

Abilities[]

Turkeys affect or are affected by the following abilities:

Both the main abilities of Shovel Knight and Mona allow them to find more Potions than usual while exploring a Dungeon, or Turkeys if special hats are worn.
Puzzle Knight's Refract ability makes him unable to find as many Potions or Turkeys as before.
Bumping into food with Specter Knight's main ability has him lose 1 HP (non cumulative). Turkeys can however be collected with his Refract ability, although they are skeletal. When transformed into Donovan, he can consume Turkeys, both regular and not, and be healed by them.
Collecting a Turkey with Black Knight's main ability resets his damage boost to 0, just like a Potion would. He can however, heal himself by consuming blocks transformed by the Conjuring Cupcake without any penalties.
Mona's main ability detonates lined up Potions or Turkeys like bombs. They each explode on a 3x3 radius each and deal 2 damage points (non cumulative) to anything caught in their blast. The Bomb Seed Bag Relic makes Mona immune to the explosion. The Too Big Bomb Relic doubles their blast radius. The Zesty Slice makes them deal 3 damage points instead of 2.
Mona's Refract ability, allows her to store up to 10 Potions, which either can be thrown at enemies to deal 2 base damage (which can also be increased by making potions more efficient in healing), or used to heal her. The Potion heals like any other normal potion, 2 points of health, but as potion efficiency is increased with certain Relics, so will be the effects of Mona's potions. Storing Turkeys instead of Potions, results in the Potion HUD besides her portrait turning into a round turkey rather than a green potion. Throwing a "Turkey-Potion" will deal a higher base damage of 5 and can also be increased with items that increase normal damage or better potion efficiency. Only one "Turkey-Potion" can be stored, the others turning into regular potions as soon as a new Turkey is collected.
Bumping into a chain of 3 or more Turkeys with King Knight's Refract ability allows him to collect a Joustus card of them. This card can be used to heal like collecting a single turkey would.
Prism Knight can use her Refract ability's clones to collect food, which heals them instead of her.
At full health, collecting Turkeys with Polar Knight's Refract ability heals up his Spinwulves.