I used to think Simon Pearson was the only responsible adult in the Van der Linde camp. While Arthur and the gang were out committing various felonies, Pearson stayed behind, tended the fire, and asked me to bring him meat. In return, he offered his famous camp stew. For years, that stew was my favorite in-game meal: a warm, golden core-generating bowl of questionable brown liquid. Then I saw the man taste his own creation, gag, and spit it onto the ground. Now I have trust issues. 🤢

Let me back up for anyone who hasn't spent 400 hours doing camp chores. In Red Dead Redemption 2, Pearson is the camp cook and crafter. You donate hunted or fished goods, he turns them into stew, and Arthur gets a Gold Health Core if he eats it. Upgrade the chicken coop, and that stew also gives a Golden Dead Eye Core. That is not a small buff. 🥇 A gold core means faster regeneration, which is incredibly useful when you keep riding into O'Driscoll ambushes because you refuse to open the map.

So of course I kept eating it. Wouldn't you? Gold Health Core? Free? Even if the stew looked like something Uncle would drink at 3 a.m.? Absolutely. 🍲

But then a tiny detail from one of those insanely observant RDR2 video essays made me reconsider. Pearson can be seen tasting the stew while it's cooking. He takes a spoonful, makes a face, immediately gags, and spits it out onto the dirt. Then he goes right back to stirring the pot as if nothing happened. If the chef can't swallow his own food, why should Arthur? Was I funding a camp-wide biological experiment?

That clip raises questions. Does the game ever explain why Pearson's cooking is so bad? Not explicitly. But since I've spent way too much time thinking about camp food, let me offer a few theories.

First, Pearson's background. His family was involved in the whaling industry. Now, whalers weren't hunting whales for gourmet dining, and long sea voyages meant provisions rotted, went rancid, or both. If Pearson grew up eating spoiled ship food, his taste buds might have simply given up. He may genuinely believe that gag-inducing stew is normal.

Second, the fault might be mine. I have absolutely carried raw boar meat in Arthur's satchel for a full in-game week under the Lemoyne sun. I've donated animals I shot because they were convenient, not because they were quality. Even the best cook on Earth would struggle to make that appetizing. Pearson is not the best cook on Earth, so the results are predictable. 🥩

Third, cross-contamination. Watch Pearson cook sometimes. He cuts raw meat, then cuts vegetables, then goes back to the meat with the same knife. He never cleans it. The stew is basically a bacterial potluck. I'm not saying Pearson invented food poisoning, but he's certainly a decorated practitioner. 🔪

Here's a helpful breakdown:

So should I stop eating Pearson's stew? In real life, yes. In RDR2, absolutely not. Those gold cores are too valuable. Every time I return to camp, I tell myself I'll just have canned peaches or a biscuit. Then I see the gold core icon waiting for me, and I make Arthur swallow the questionable concoction. Pearson gags, I laugh, and Hosea pretends he didn't see it. It's practically a camp tradition.

By 2026, this tiny detail still cracks me up. Red Dead Redemption 2 remains unmatched when it comes to small, character-driven moments. I'm convinced Rockstar hid an entire tragicomedy in the camp cooking pot. Next time you donate a perfect deer carcass, watch Pearson taste the stew. You'll laugh. You'll cringe. Then you'll eat it anyway, because we're all suckers for golden cores.

So here's to Pearson: the only man who can gag at his own recipe and still convince an entire gang to eat it. That takes a special kind of confidence. 🥄