All spoilers are unmarked, so tread with caution. You Have Been Warned.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Is the player just as bad as, better than, or worse than Karin? Also, what are they? The Chompettes refer to the other characters in the Cabin as Humans, but conspicuously since they never say "the other humans" as they talk to the player, it gives off heavy implications that the player isn't a human themselves. And when you see their arms, they are wrinkled and greenish. There are also numerous references to the myth of Baba Yaga.
- Fridge Brilliance: It seems rather inconceivable that a party of five would run out of a week's supplies in two days. More so when we learn the player character owns the cabin. Then we find out the player character eats the guests, and deliberately makes them desperate.
- Realism-Induced Horror:
- The idea that you open your cabin to a group of new friends and prepare to rough it out, while enjoying each other's company, only to get stranded with no means of calling for help or evacuating. Mariah does an inventory check and says that there isn't enough food for everyone if the floods trap them. Gregor remains the optimist and says they can forage, but soon he starts to snap as the cabinmates start dropping like flies.
- Some dialogue from Karin reveals that she is a refugee from Ukraine if you take her word for it. She says that she risked her life to get cabin supplies and was in danger of being shot. It turns out you've been luring vulnerable people to your cabin, on the pretense of hosting them.
- Further dialogue from Anatoly and Mariah reveals more about what, exactly, they're seeking refuge from, and the implications add greatly to the horror of the game. Anatoly's backstory suggests that he was around six years old during World War I, which combined with his current age puts the setting of Cooking Companions in the early 1930s. Mariah describes a mixture of political repression and famine. Between the timeframe and the details of the catastrophe (along with the fact that it's occurring in Ukraine), it's pretty clear that the Companions are fleeing the Holodomor. This may explain both Mariah's aversion to eating meat and Karin's declaration that she should have never left Ukraine in the most disturbing way possible: During the Holodomor, cannibalism was widespread.
- Squick: On day 3, the only food in the cabin is mold-crusted bread. Despite being grossed out, Mariah points out that it's the only food they have in the cabin so they don't have a choice.
