When I was around 13, I became obsessed with The Sims 2, the early‑2000s life‑simulation game that let me direct my cartoon characters to cook elaborate meals. My Sims hosted dinner parties, became celebrity chefs, and served dishes like lobster thermidor that I’d never heard of. I loved zooming in on the food, the funny angles and perverse shading, as if it were a close‑up of “meat” cut into a pork‑chop shape. The craze was short‑lived; a cracked disc ended it, and I didn’t play another game until last year when I discovered Overcooked. The frantic multiplayer kitchen game, dubbed “divorce kitchen,” captured the frenzy of cooking: colourful dishes, mastering new recipes, and the joy of labour.

پہ food has appeared in games since the 1980s, from Pac‑Man to Mario’s mushrooms, and more recently Nintendo DS titles like 2006‑released Cooking Mama. Narrative titles such as Venba and brand tie‑ins like Hell’s Kitchen: The Game show that cooking can be both storytelling and branding. In Overcooked the reward is not the finished plate but the next pizza; the game suggests that the act of creation itself can be pleasurable, echoing the satisfaction of slicing a courgette IRL.