ROTTEN FLESH

Nothing else on this site has as many sources as this does. No recipe in Java 26.2 produces it: it drops from camel husks, drowned, husks and 6 others. That is a longer list of mobs than any other item here names, so rotten flesh is less a thing you go out and get and more a thing you end up holding whether you meant to or not.

That is the whole pitch for trading it away. A dedicated grinder is not required, only the ordinary business of clearing caves and outlasting nights, and the Cleric takes it off your hands the moment one appears at his stall.

Do not expect much per trip, though. Of everything the Cleric buys, this is the one he values least, which makes it the item to empty a full inventory of rather than the one to plan a trip around.

One villager, one number, and not a generous one. A Cleric at novice takes 32 rotten flesh per emerald, the worst rate anywhere on his own list. Nobody else in the game will buy it at any price.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 32 rotten flesh, from the Cleric, and nothing else on that list asks for more. No villager sells rotten flesh back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Cleric takes 32 rotten flesh a trade, 16 trades, 16 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

16 acacia boats against 384 paper for the same 16 emeralds, 24 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Fisherman at 10 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Rotten Flesh itself pays 32 an emerald, so 70 of the 72 ask less and 0 ask more.

This offer sits at novice, level 1 of five, which is early enough that almost any working Cleric already has it. There is nothing to roll for and no second tier to compare it against: one price, unrolled, the same at every stall.

The slot itself runs 16 trades before it locks, and a Cleric only refills it by walking back to his brewing stand, which happens up to twice a Minecraft day. Selling in bulk means selling on his schedule, not yours.

16 sales close the slot, and the refill after that takes 2 real minutes, the same wait every profession runs on. A Minecraft day covers 20 real minutes and allows two of those refills, which is the hard ceiling on how much flesh one Cleric can absorb.

Stood there for the whole day, that Cleric clears 1024 rotten flesh for 32 emeralds, and it does not matter whether the day is spent watching him or spent elsewhere: the slot waits exactly where it was left, refilled or not.

Treat this as inventory cleanup, not income. The slot takes 16 trades at 32 a go, so a real haul from any one night of clearing caves is likely to fill it in one visit and leave the rest for a chest.

Where the emeralds go back: that same Cleric also sells redstone dust, 2 for 1 emerald, his cheapest offer, so the flesh you cannot use pays for the redstone you can.

Also on the Cleric's list: gold ingot, lapis lazuli, rabbit foot, glowstone, scute, glass bottle.

Almost everything undead drops it: zombies, husks, drowned, zombie villagers, zombified piglins. Anybody who has spent a night out has more of it than they know what to do with, which is exactly why a villager who buys the stuff is worth walking to.

Eating it works and costs you hunger through the poison that follows, so it is emergency food rather than food. The exception is wolves: a tamed wolf eats rotten flesh with no ill effect at all and heals from it.

As a trade it is the purest conversion in the game. A mob farm turns a dark room into flesh, and the cleric turns flesh into emeralds, with nothing in between that you have to craft.

The Cleric takes Rotten Flesh 32 at a time and repeats it 16 times, so 512 Rotten Flesh clears one restock. A zombie drops 2 at most without Looting, which puts one full Cleric at 256 zombies or more. Numbers like that want a farm: How to Build a Zombie Farm in Minecraft. If your world has a dungeon with a zombie spawner in it, How to Build a Mob Spawner XP Farm in Minecraft gets you there faster.