A Taste of the Past is one of the Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII side quests in The Wildlands that must be activated as soon as possible, because to complete it, you will need a large number of items or ingredients, you can collect while working on other quests.
A Taste of the Past can be triggered after The Angel of Valhalla, but you won’t be able to finish it, unless Lightning’s Chocobo can glide.
This means that you also have to finish Healing an Angel, and Saving an Angel, in order to be able to feed the Chocobo.
Eventually, when the bird regains all powers, the bandages around the wings will fall, allowing the bird to glide. At this point you can complete A Taste of the Past, using the walkthrough below.
Quest Details
Description: “In Aryas Village, a master chef is anxious to work his culinary magic, but cannot until he has the right ingredients. For his special recipe, the chef needs three drops of vibrant ooze and six moonsoul blooms. Both are fairly easy to find – vibrant ooze, for example can be harvested from Miniflan. On the other hand, the chef’s legendary recipe is a greater challenge, which requires two rocky crag moles and two Aryas apples.”
Location: The Wildlands
Difficulty: 2/3
Requirements: After main-quest 3-2: Healing an Angel. Start at 9 AM, and finish before 10 PM
Failable: No
Rewards: 1200 Gil, Maximum HP + 80, Strength + 2, Magic + 6, Ripe Apple Adornment, Crystal Apple Adornment
Quest Walkthrough
The first thing you have to do is to travel to Aryas Village to locate the client, Chef Aryas. He is located very close to Dr. Sheep’s corral (Fuzzy Search side-quest).
Once you talk to Chef Aryas, he will tell you that he has two recipes he wishes to try. The first one is his Special Recipe, while the second is his Legendary Recipe.
Note: If you wish to focus exclusively on the side-quest, all you have to do is to provide the materials for the Legendary Recipe; but be advised that if you wish to get the Mystical Meal for the Moogle Gourmand Canvas of Prayers quest, you also need the materials for the Special Recipe. A good idea is to find the ingredients for both recipes.
Assuming that you want to help the chef and get both recipes cooked, you should start with the Special Recipe.
The materials you need for the Special Recipe are 3 Vibrant Ooze and 6 Moonsoul Blooms.
The Vibrant Ooze is dropped by Miniflans which spawn around Aryas Village and Canopus Farms. They are blue and smaller than the Flanitors in Yusnaan. For each Miniflan you defeat, you will get one Vibrant Ooze.
While looking for them, make sure that you also collect Moonsoul Blooms. They can be found only during the night and they are the white flowers that glow in the dark. When you get 6 of them, go back to the chef and ask him to cook the Special Recipe.
For the Legendary Recipe on the other hand, you will need some special ingredients known as Aryas Apples and Rocky Crag Moles.
To get them Lightning’s Chocobo must know how to glide. The first ingredients you should get are the Aryas Apples. While standing close to the chef, go around him and follow the path behind the village to get on top of the hill, where you should see a demolished structure. Turn left and go around it until you reach the edge of the hill.
The structure should be on your right side. Glide across the gap on the next platform, and turn left to see another one. Glide again and look on the ground to see a glowing Aryas Apple. Practically, the apple is on the upper platform east from Aryas Village.
Pick it up and return to the settlement. In Aryas Village you should also see a sheep coral.
Go around it and continue to move west on the main map until you reach another gap (where you have found the Fearful Sheep in Round ‘Em Up side-quest). Look across the gap and you will see another platform on which you can glide. Take the apple on the ground and get ready to travel to Rocky Crag.
One of the Rocky Crag Moles you can collect is located on the path that connects Rocky Crag and Poltae, to small settlement north from Rocky Crag. Assuming that you enter Rocky Crag following the path east from Canopus Farms, move north and you will reach a pass through the mountain. Pay close attention to the ground and you should see the Rocky Crag Mole.
For the second mole, retrace your steps and go back to the nearby crossroad and head east to reach another large gap. Glide across it and on the other side you should see some red flowers. In front of them is the second Rocky Crag Mole.
Collect it and go back to Aryas Village. Talk to the chef to complete the FF Lightning Returns side-quest named A Taste of the Past, for which you will also get Nora Special along with all rewards listed above.
