Stardew Valley Luau Guide

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Ella is SdewHQ's resident virtual farming expert, and whether she is farming, fishing, mining, or decorating her farmhouse, you can rest assured that she is loving every second. Outside of the Stardew universe Ella is a keen gamer and particularly loves titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, The Outer Worlds, and her childhood favorite, Monster's Inc Scare Island. Ella is also a gaming UX researcher, has a keen interest in acccessibity within games and strives to fill up her PS trophy cabinet upon every gaming session.

Bottom Line Up Front

The Luau is a great place to pick up cool, unique items, and socialize with everyone in Pelican Town, but the key thing that you all probably want to know is, how can I wow the Mayor and create the best soup possible.

Well, here’s the skinny. No matter what you add to the soup, you’ll need to add a Silver, Gold, or Iridium item. Normal items will never warrant a great response. However, not all items will do the trick.

Depending on what item you use, you’ll earn the following:

Response	Reward/Punishment	Easiest Item to Use
Best Response	120 Friendship Points	Any Gold/Iridium Wine, Gold/Iridium Milk or Cheese, Good/Iridium Truffle, Gold/Iridium Super Cucumber
Good Response	60 Friendship Points	(All Normal) Cheese, Milk, Cauliflower, Strawberry
Neutral Response	No Effect	Most Normal Items
Bad response	Minus 50 Friendship Points	Anchovy, Daffodil, Joja Cola
Worst Response	Minus 100 Friendship Points	Sap, Red Mushroom, Void Egg
Missing Something Response	No Effect (Multiplayer)	One Item Only
Secret Response	No Effect	Major Lewis’ Lucky Purple Shorts

The Luau Shop

There is a small booth at the Luau, which is run by local resident and marketing guru Pierre. We will concede that the shop is probably one of the least exciting when compared to all the other merchants at other Stardew Valley festivals. However, there are a few little curios that you might get a kick out of.

At the booth, you can purchase a range of items, including;

Item	Price (G)
Wall Palm	1,000g
Jungle Decal	800g
Ceiling Leaves	400g
Totem Pole	1,000g
Starfruit (1)	3,000g
Plain Torch	700g

Most of these items are just fun little decorative bits allowing you to give your farm more of a Hawaiian island feel. However, of all the items listed above, the Starfruit is probably the star of the show. Why, you ask? Well, unless you manage to complete the Vault Bundle in the Community center, and get to the bottom of the mines to get your hands on the Skull Cavern key, then you’ll have no access to Starfruit seeds.

This can be a bit of a bummer, as Starfruit is a very profitable crop, not to mention, it is needed to complete a quest for Kent when he returns to town and needed to build Junimo Huts. So it’s pretty important to have a means of growing these.

If you aren’t much of a penny-pincher or a fighter, then it might take you a while to get to the Calico Desert, but with the help of this single Starfruit, and a Seed Maker, you can gradually build up your reserve of Starfruit for a one-time investment of 3,000g. Not bad, right?

The Luau Pot Luck – Selecting an Item

Okay, so you have visited the shop, and mingled a little. Now comes the time to decide what food item (or non-food item) you want to add to the potluck. Here’s the thing. If you go in absolutely blind, there is a good chance that you’ll probably get a neutral or a good response from the Governor.

I personally got a good response the first time I ever attended by throwing a normal quality Melon in there. My point here is, the important things to know here, are what items serve as amazing additions, and what items will make the Governor see his lunch for the second time.

So that’s what I’ll offer below. A complete list of all the items that will earn you the max reward of 120 Friendship Points, and the items that will see you lose 100 Friendship Points if you happen to bring them along. Check it out below:

The ‘Best Response’ Items

To get the best response from the Soup tasting, you cannot add normal/basic quality items. Here is a complete list of all the best items to bring to the Luau.

Type of Item	Normal Quality	Silver Quality	Gold/Iridium Quality
Crops	N/A	Starfruit	Starfruit, Artichoke, Cauliflower, Melon, Pineapple, red Cabbage, Yam
Animal Produce	N/A	Goat Cheese, Large Goat Milk, Ostrich Egg, Golden Egg	Cheese, Goat Cheese, Goat Milk, Large Goat Milk, Ostrich Egg, Golden Egg, Truffle
Fish	N/A	Blobfish, Crimsonfish, Ice Pip, Lava Eel, Legend, Legend II, Son of Crimsonfish	Angler, Blobfish, Catfish, Crimsonfish, Glacierfish, Glacierfish II, Ice Pip, Lava Eel, Legend, Legend II, Ms. Angler, Mutant Carp, Radioactive Carp, Son of Crimsonfish, Spook Fish, Stingray, Sturgeon, Super Cucumber,
Artisan	N/A	Ancient Fruit Fine, Apple Wine, Banana Wine, Coconut Wine, Crystal Fruit Wine, Mango Wine, Melon Wine, Orange Wine, Peach Wine, Pineapple Wine, Pomegranate Wine, Rhubarb Wine, Starfruit Wine, Strawberry Wine	Ancient Fruit Fine, Apple Wine, Banana Wine, Beer, Cactus Fruit Wine, Cherry Wine, Coconut Wine, Cranberries Wine, Crystal Fruit Wine, Grape Wine, Mango Wine, Mead, Melon Wine, Orange Wine, Pale Ale, Peach Wine, Pineapple Wine, Pomegranate Wine, Rhubarb Wine, Starfruit Wine, Spiced Berry Wine, Strawberry Wine
Miscellaneous	N/A	Magma Cap, Wine (From Travelling Cart)	Magma Cap, Wine (From Travelling Cart), Chantarelle, Fairy Rose, Purple Mushroom

Items to Avoid (Bad or Worst Response)

To avoid getting a bad response and losing Friendship Points, be sure to leave the following items back at the farm:

Type of Item	Bad Response (-50FP)	Worst Response (-100FP)
Crops	N/A	N/A
Animal Produce	N/A	Void Mayonaise
Artisan	N/A	N/A
Fish	Anchovy, Carp	Pufferfish, Sea Cucumber, Scorpion carp
Miscellaneous	Crocus, Daffodil, Field Snack, Joja Cola, Sweet Pea, Green Algae, Spring Onion	Holly, Sap, Red Mushroom,

How Do I Add Items to the Soup?

Once you have selected the item you want to add to the Soup, make sure you carry this with you on the day of the Potluck to bring it with you to the Beach. Once you are at the festival, there is a small set of stairs that lead up to the pot, you should walk up these and then select the item you want to add to the Soup, and it will add it for you!

Note that you can only add one item to the Soup, so be sure that you select the right one!

How to Start the Tasting

As you can wander around and speak with anyone at the festival, in order to actually trigger the cutscene in which the Governor will taste and judge the Soup, you must approach the Governor and speak with him, and he will ask if you are ready to begin, if your item has already been added to the Soup you should select yes and the event will begin!

The Luau Response

The Governor is really the deciding factor of a successful Luau; he will taste the Soup and, based on the items inside, will decide how good (or how bad) it is. There are six possible response types from the Governor;

The ideal response: If the Governor absolutely loves the Soup and you added the best possible ingredient, the Governor will say ”Oh my.. that is the best Soup I ever tasted” If you get this response, you will be rewarded with 120 friendship points with each of the villagers in the Town.
A good response: If the Governor enjoys the Soup and you added a valuable ingredient, the Governor will say, ”Ah, that’s a very pleasant soup. The produce from this Valley never disappoints” If you get this response, you will be rewarded with 60 friendship points with each of the villagers in the Town.
A neutral response: If the Governor does not particularly enjoy the Soup and you added a basic ingredient, the Governor will say ” Hm, I don’t have much to say about this Soup, it is an average Soup” If you get this response, you will not gain or lose friendship points.
A bad response: If the Governor dislikes the Soup and you added a poor ingredient, the Governor will say, ”Um. It is actually kind of disgusting. I think I will pass on the Soup this year” If you make the Soup bad, you will lose 50 points with each villager.
The worst possible response: If the Governor hates the Soup and you added a terrible ingredient, the Governor will say,” Blech! This is vile! I think I am going to be sick” If you make a terrible soup, you will lose 100 friendship points with everyone in the Town.
No added ingredient response: If you forget or choose not to add anything to the Soup, the Governor will say,” Well, it’s not bad, but it’s missing something. Did everyone in Town contribute an ingredient to the Soup? I feel like it’s missing someone’s unique voice.” No points will be given or taken.

The Best Ingredient for Mischief

The secret option, of course, for the Soup is a fun surprise; you can add Mayor Lewis’s Shorts. Mayor Lewis’s shady relationship with Marnie is thinly veiled. During your first Summer in Pelican Town, you are contacted by a letter from Mayor Lewis, where he asks you to ”discreetly” locate his missing shorts (not weird or suspicious at all, right?)

Well, the even weirder twist is that you can find Mayor Lewis’s Shorts in Marnie’s bedroom (best not to dwell on that too much). To get the shorts, you need to be friends with Marnie, or she will not allow you to walk through her house into the rooms; the easiest way to get a good relationship with Marnie is to give the gifts that she likes.

Gifts that Marnie loves: Diamonds, Farmer’s Lunch, Pumpkin Pie, Pink Cake
Gifts that Marnie likes: All universal in-game likes, all Eggs, all Milk, and Quartz.

Once you are friends with Marnie, you can enter her room in her house and retrieve the Mayor’s shorts; this is where the fun starts. While according to the quest, you are supposed to return the shorts to the Mayor for a reward of 750g and one friendship point between you and the Mayor. However, you can choose to keep the shorts until the Luau and put them in the Soup! (Don’t you love a bit of mischief)

If you put the shorts in the Soup, you receive a unique ”secret” response from the Governor, and he will say ” “Hmm. It is a bit tangy, but actually, the flavor is quite good! Just one minute, there’s something in my bowl. What is this?”

While all other residents do not react to this, and your relationship with everyone is unaffected, the Mayor will be absolutely furious with you. Who wouldn’t want to infuriate the Mayor? He is a lazy and terrible Mayor!

Socializing at the Luau

One of the nice, and lesser important, if I am honest, aspects of the Luau is that it is a chance to chat with all of the residents of Pelican Town!

Normally, what I like to do is chat with everyone in attendance before I put anything in the Soup because once you do, the event will begin, and the cutscene will trigger, following which the festival ends, and you arrive back at home.

FAQs

Question: What is the best item to put in the Soup at Stardew Valley?

Answer: It depends, really! If what you love is mischief, then the best item to put in the Soup is definitely the Mayor’s Shorts from the Mayors Shorts quest, which you can find in Marnie’s Bedroom (Suspicious, I know). If your goal is to make a delicious soup, then you could add high-quality crops such as Beer, Cauliflower, or Cheese.

Question: What happens if I put the Mayor’s Shorts in the Soup?

Answer: Other than feeling amazing and sneaky, there is not much of a response. The Governor will find the Soup tastes weird and wonder what was placed inside it, no other residents will react at all, but the Mayor will be furious with you.

Question: Do you have to take part in the Luau?

Answer: Absolutely not! You can choose not to attend the Luau, which has no impact. You can also attend the Luau and not add anything to the Soup, but if you don’t take part, you won’t receive any friendship points.