Do NPCs *Actually* Have Favorite Budding Day Gifts??

[Jankies]

I was under the impression that NPC's had favorite budding day gifts which would automatically end the Budding Day dialogue and maybe result in additional dialogue and the NPC gifting you something small in return.

I'd seen Mari's wiki page mention her favorite Budding Day gift was strawberries, but noticed there was no information on other NPC favorite gifts, and since Mari's budding day had already passed, I decided to try and work out what the others' favorites could be.

Avery's Budding Day was closest, and I'd seen someone mention in a previous discussion that they gave him Spiceghetti, which had prematurely ended the Budding Day dialogue, but this didn't happen to me. I tried gifting him every lemon recipe in the book and even a regular old lemon, but he seemed rather unfazed, and eventually I had to dismiss the Budding Day dialogue myself and give up.

Freya's Budding Day was next, so I tried making her Mushroom Rice as she'd mentioned her father used to make it, but again, gifting her the dish didn't yield any special results.

I decided to use the recipe descriptions as a clue instead, so I gave Agami the Mushroom Rice, as it's "popular amongst forest folk," and Marlo Buns a la Fancy, as it was made by a "mystery artist" like himself. After gifting them these items, the Budding Day dialogue automatically closed (i.e. I couldn't gift them anything else or even give them well-wishes) unlike what happened with Avery and Freya, so I assumed these dishes were their favorites.

I was unable to properly bruteforce Zara's "favorite Budding Day gift" because I didn't have lemons (thanks, Avery) and the fruit vendor in Archeo Pelago didn't have any available in the days leading up to her Budding Day, but no matter what dish I gifted her, she allowed me to continue to gift her until finally I had no more food left in my pockets and had to end her Budding Day dialogue myself.

Due to Mari's favorite Budding Day gift being strawberries according to the wiki, I wanted to test the information myself but also see if she would have any special response to a particular dish. To my surprise, not only did gifting her literally all 81 recipes yield no special responses, but gifting her a strawberry didn't either. Going back to an old manual save, I gifted Granny Agami an apple from off the ground and to my incredible dismay this also automatically ended her Budding Day dialogue, just like the Mushroom Rice had.

So are the different NPC responses simply a bug? What interests me is that the NPCs who prematurely end their Budding Day dialogue after receiving a gift potentially differ across different game saves. This doesn't seem to be related to NPC friendship either, as I'm BFFs with all of them.

If there truly is no favorite Budding Gift mechanic, I kind of wish there was. :P