What’s Cookin’?: The Supper Subverts Cooking as Care to Create Horror

Many people, myself included, use cooking as a sign of care- a sort of love language. It’s not hard to understand why. Crafting something for another easily translates to an action undertaken for a loved one. Octavi Navarro’s The Supper understands this, and uses a clever play on that notion to create a bite-sized tale of horror. 

Ms. Appleton is a little old lady, with wooden stilts serving as prosthetic legs, who runs a rundown tavern. A voice speaks to her from beyond, guiding her as she gathers ingredients to feed her very special guests. Mechanically, this is you solving point-and-click adventure game puzzles both in the tavern and in the surrounding area, collecting various items and combining them to gather the ingredients you need for three vaguely gross recipes. 

It’s almost immediately clear that Ms. Appleton and the voice have murderous intent towards the trio of rough-looking guests that stop by the tavern for dinner. It’s unclear why, but it kind of gives off “Sweeney Todd and his human meat pies” vibes at first, so it’s not much of a mystery really. As you gather your questionable ingredients, you get little tidbits about this world, and it seems fairly grim. The dead pirate you steal a key item from was apparently beating his wife, who was the voice’s sister. The prisoner in the cell next door to the tavern is nothing but a skeleton. Even one of the men you’re serving at the tavern is actually a parasite that has taken over some guy’s body. 

With all that dark flavor text, it just doesn’t seem that strange that this game would be going in the vein of murderous people that use food to cover it up, but The Supper has more going on with it than just that. Don’t get me wrong, food is a weapon and body disposal method, but it’s not because Ms. Appleton is a cannibal, or some evil witch bent on eating human flesh. Her goal is simple: to avenge her friend.

We come to find out that the voice Ms. Appeton hears is a friend of hers that used to help run the tavern. He was killed by the men she’s serving because he won some gold from them while gambling. These men are also the reason Ms. Appleton’s legs are gone, because she was there during the murder.

Though the goal for those who are going to eat the food is harm, the act of cooking in The Supper is still one of care. Ms. Appleton is still cooking for someone she loves, after all. She wouldn’t be able to take her friend’s killers on in a fight, but a little bad food? That could be arranged. Because her friend hasn’t been able to rest, and is still speaking with her, Ms. Appleton does the unthinkable to help him find peace. That’s the horror of The Supper. The nightmares we inflict on each other, and the lengths we’d go to for those we love.