Are you constantly asking how do I get emelya rye croutons? Where do I find delicious beef stew? Why am I level 25 and still stuck on level 1 Jaeger? Look no further because I will tell you how to get this stupid quest done!
First, the lunchboxes. Craft them at the nutrition station. If you’re sub level 10 and don’t have the flea, focus on other quests to get you to level 10 as they require less time. Continue to look for these components but save yourself the heartache and wait until you have the flee. You’ll need squash, beef stew (small one) and crackers to craft it.
Second the croutons and beef stew. I’m going to focus on woods because right now no one really has thermal or stupid OP rifles, so you stand a chance running woods. You can use scavs but I highly suggest using your PMC, as these areas are highly run by PMCs and scavs right now. Later in wipe you might be able to get away with ratting this route.
If you’re new, read this paragraph, otherwise you can skip. First, use your PMC with a gun you’re comfortable with. SKS is great but if you’re better with a PP-19 go for it. It’s better to use a gun that you can hit your target with than a better damaging rifle with which you can’t land your shots. Use a Zhuk-3 (check flea they’re cheap and good on repairs) for armor and a decent rig + backpack. When you spawn in, it can be very disorientating. Use a map to help you, and use the big hills as a landmark (they’re north out of bounds) and the smoke stacks (south/southeast out of bounds). The big lake is center south, and the mini lakes are north. The power lines run through the middle of the map. Use these as your marks to navigate, and be weary of unmarked land mines. Complete the prapor mission that gives you a compass (search mission also on woods) and use the compass to navigate the map (hit U). This will make your life easier as woods is huge. Be careful of sniper rock because PMCs frequent here.
Now, for how to get these dumb food items. You’re locations are primarily ration crates. Sadly there is no resource that maps their location on all the maps, but woods has some very phenomenal food spawns and locations with the ration crates. Click for the map. First, and foremost, your priority is the Emercom camp (slightly east of the southern large lake). This is a lower traffic area than the mill and sniper rock, but players frequent here for the same reason as you; to complete this quest. There are so many good spawns in the large tent with the tables, around the camp and on top of boxes and tables. There are 2 ration crates, one in front of the large cafeteria tent, and one closer to the medical side. These crates CAN spawn emelya rye croutons! The wiki is mistaken, I have gotten 2 emelya rye croutons in the ration crates. You will also be able to obviously get the delicious beef stew in these crates.
If the emercom camp is looted, head to old saw mill. This is north east of the emercom camp. Here there are multiple food spawns. I find lots of food and technical loot, but it’s not as good as emercom. Lastly, head to the village. There is a bunch of food spawns in the houses (2 on the left 1 on the right) in their kitchens. There’s a variety of supply crates as well here. I found mostly sugar, but you may get lucky. You can go to the north part of the map for abandoned town, but I’ve had very little luck up here.
If you do this and still struggle with the croutons, I’ve had crazy good luck with the 3 cabins in the mill. I’ve gotten 1 emelya rye croutons per run there because no one seems to loot these cabins (go here if you scav run! Don’t kill scavs and they’ll leave you alone here and you can loot freely). They are at the north east corner of the mill, however this area is insanely high traffic and there are a bunch of scavs.
And that’s it! I’ve found a lot of croutons on woods, and I found both my stews in ration supply crates. If you’ve got stupid money you can do the reserve method and go to the bunker using RB-PSP1 key (there are 4 ration supply crates here, the key right now is averaging 360,000 on the flea).
TL:DR; Croutons spawn in ration supply crates, woods is amazing for finding croutons and beef stew. If all else fails, buy RB-PSP1 and run reserve.
