James Crooks [Patreon cultist] asks:

In light of the reveal of Alcremie, who looks like an Eton Mess(?) what’s a dessert/series of desserts that you think could be adapted into a new Pokemon?

There’s kind of a… maybe theme that Game Freak might be trying to start, of having Pokémon that are based on desserts associated with the real world cultures that their regions are based on. Slurpuff is a meringue Pokémon for France and Alcremie is a strawberries and cream (or perhaps Eton mess, as you suggest) Pokémon for England. Vanilluxe… well, you can debate how fair it is to call ice cream cones American, but they were first popularised in the United States, and for Pokémon’s first non-Japanese region something generically “Western” is probably enough anyway, and Castelia City has a Vanillite-themed dessert that you can buy. Alola doesn’t really have one, but I think arguably Hau counts as an honorary dessert Pokémon for his obsession with malasadas (a characteristic Hawaiian dessert) and his diabetes-inducing personality. That being the case… we could look at some iconic desserts of other regions.

You could have, for instance, a baklava Pokémon for any Balkan or Middle Eastern region – something that gradually builds up more layers to its body as it grows older, collecting Combee honey to glue it all together. If we ever made a return to Japan, either to a new region or to one of the existing ones with new Pokémon, you could have a mochi or wagashi Pokémon. Wagashi in particular offer a dizzying range of potential form variations that could be tied in with different areas, or seasons, or any number of other things. An Indian region could have a lassi Pokémon that harvests different berries and other flavourful plants and turns them into delicious yoghurty smoothies (are we stealing Shuckle’s bit? Maybe we’re stealing Shuckle’s bit. No one cares about Shuckle though).

It’s a shame France is already taken because French cuisine has lots of visually interesting desserts. It would be fun to have a choux pastry Pokémon, starting from an individual choux puff and evolving (Magneton/Dugtrio style) into something more complicated like a croquembouche or a Saint-Honoré cake (I sort of imagine this hovering in the air, rotating and firing off attacks from all of its choux puff heads at once). Meanwhile Galar, of course, is based on Great Britain, not just England, and in honour of the fact that the female protagonist of Sword and Shield is clearly a foul-mouthed Glaswegian, I think we have to at least consider that most iconic Scottish dessert of all time: the deep-fried Mars bar. I don’t know what its powers or personality would be like, but its absence is clearly a gaping void in Galar’s soul that must be healed at all costs. Finally, to abandon the geographical theme (well, except in name) a baked Alaska would be an excellent excuse for an Ice/Fire Pokémon.