Skills/Cooking

« Back to Skills

Cooking is the craft of turning flour, meat, fruit and eggs into meals. Cooks grind wheat into flour, knead dough, bake bread, pies, cakes and pizzas in an oven, and grill meat and fish over a fire. A skilled cook can also mix the savage kin paint that lets you walk among the savage tribes.

This page explains how cooking works in New Bradford, from your first fried egg to a Grandmaster's pumpkin pie. Raw meat comes from carving animals in the Bestiary, and fish from Fishing. To check food for poison, see Taste Identification.

At a glance

Skill category	Crafting & gathering
Tools	Skillet, rolling pin or flour sifter (see Tools)
Workstations	An oven for baking, a fire for grilling, a flour mill for flour. Mixing dough and fillings can be done anywhere.
Materials	Wheat, flour, water, honey, eggs, raw meat, fish, fruit, sausage and cheese
What you can make	Flour, dough, bread, cookies, cake, muffins, quiche, pies, pizzas, grilled meat and fish, fried eggs, and savage kin paint
Skill cap	100 (Grandmaster)
Starting gear	Choosing Cooking as a starting skill gives you 2 kindling, a raw leg of lamb, a raw chicken leg, a raw fish steak, a sack of flour and a pitcher of water.

Tools

Any of the three cooking tools opens the same cooking menu, so you only need one.

Name	Uses	Where to get it
Skillet	25 to 75 (100 if exceptional)	Cooks (3 gold). Tinkers make them from 4 iron ingots (30 Tinkering).
Rolling pin	25 to 75 (100 if exceptional)	Cooks (2 gold). Tinkers make them from 5 boards or logs.
Flour sifter	25 to 75 (100 if exceptional)	Cooks (2 gold). Tinkers make them from 3 iron ingots (50 Tinkering).

The tool must be on your person, in your backpack: "The tool must be on your person to use."

Every attempt uses one charge, whether it succeeds or fails. When the last one is gone the tool breaks: "You have worn out your tool!" At 2 or 3 gold, carry a spare.

Workstations

Some recipes need something nearby. It must be within 2 tiles of you.

	Workstation	Needed for	Where to find one
East and south	Stone oven	Baking	Bakeries, inns and kitchens.
East and south	Sandstone oven	Baking	Bakeries, inns and kitchens. Works the same as a stone oven.
Campfire, fireplace east and south	Fire	Barbecue	Any oven or fireplace, a campfire (light kindling with Camping), a fire pit, a lit heating stand, a forge, or even a fire field.
East and south	Flour mill	Sack of flour	Mills in town.

Heating stand

A heating stand from an alchemist or glassblower (2 gold) is the cheapest portable fire: set it down, double-click it to light it, and cook next to it. Tinkers can also make them (60 Tinkering).

How to cook

Put the ingredients in your backpack and stand near the workstation the recipe needs.
Double-click your skillet, rolling pin or flour sifter. The cooking menu opens.
Pick a category (Ingredients, Preparations, Baking or Barbecue), then the item.
On success the food goes in your backpack: "You create the item."

The menu also has a Make Last button to repeat your last item and a Last Ten list.

Success chance

Every recipe except savage kin paint can be tried by anyone. Your chance of success is simply your Cooking: 30% at 30.0, 75% at 75.0, and you never fail at 100.0.

A failed attempt costs the ingredients: "You failed to create the item, and some of your materials are lost."

Food has no quality. A Grandmaster's pie fills you up exactly as much as a beginner's.

Cooking a whole stack

Barbecue recipes cook your whole stack at once. If you're carrying a stack of 20 raw fish steaks, one success turns all 20 into fish steaks. One failure burns half the stack. It's one skill check either way, so cook one at a time while you're training and in big stacks once you're good.

Ingredients

Wheat and flour

Wheat

Wheat grows in fields around New Bradford. Double-click a ripe wheat plant within 2 tiles to pick a sheaf of wheat . The picked plant withers away, and new wheat grows back later.

Take two sheaves to a flour mill and make a sack of flour, or just buy flour from a cook, miller or baker for 3 gold.

Water

Pitcher of water

Dough needs one serving of water. A pitcher of water from a barkeeper, innkeeper, tavern keeper or waiter (11 gold) holds 5 servings. Refill an empty pitcher at a water trough: target the trough with the pitcher and "You fill the container with water."

Meat, fish and produce

Ingredient	Buy from	Or get it from
Raw ribs	Butchers (16 gold)	Carving most animals, such as a Cow (8), Great Hart (6), Hind (5), Boar (2) or Pig (1)
Raw bird	Butchers (9 gold)	Carving a Chicken, Eagle or other Bird (1)
Raw leg of lamb	Butchers (9 gold)	Carving a Sheep (3)
Raw chicken leg	Butchers (6 gold)
Raw fish steak	Fishermen (3 gold)	Cut a fish with a blade for 4 steaks. See Fishing.
Eggs	Farmers (3 gold)
Jar of honey	Cooks, bakers and beekeepers (3 gold)
Sausage	Butchers (18 gold)
Wheel of cheese	Cooks, barkeepers, innkeepers, tavern keepers and waiters (21 gold)
Apple	Provisioners, farmers and innkeepers (3 gold)
Pear	Provisioners, farmers and innkeepers (3 gold)
Peach	Farmers and innkeepers (3 gold)
Pumpkin	Farmers (11 gold)

Use a blade on a corpse to carve it. The number after each animal is how many pieces it gives.

What you can make

In every table, Cooking needed is the minimum skill and Always succeeds at is the skill where you stop failing. "Any" means anyone can try it. Fills is how much the food fills you up (see Eating).

Ingredients

Item	Cooking needed	Always succeeds at	Ingredients	Where	Notes
Sack of flour	Any	100.0	2 sheaves of wheat	Near a flour mill	Cooks, millers and bakers sell it (3 gold).
Dough	Any	100.0	1 sack of flour 1 water	Anywhere	The base of breads, pies and pizzas.
Sweet dough	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 jar of honey	Anywhere	Bake it into muffins.
Cake mix	Any	100.0	1 sack of flour 1 sweet dough	Anywhere	Bake it into a cake.
Cookie mix	Any	100.0	1 jar of honey 1 sweet dough	Anywhere	Bake it into a pan of cookies.

Preparations

Preparations are the unbaked pies and pizzas you take to an oven. Each one is a dough plus a filling. They can be made anywhere.

Item	Cooking needed	Always succeeds at	Ingredients
Unbaked quiche	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 eggs
Unbaked meat pie	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 raw ribs
Uncooked sausage pizza	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 sausage
Uncooked cheese pizza	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 wheel of cheese
Unbaked fruit pie	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 pear
Unbaked peach cobbler	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 peach
Unbaked apple pie	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 apple
Unbaked pumpkin pie	Any	100.0	1 dough 1 pumpkin
Savage kin paint	80.0	80.1	1 sack of flour 1 tribal berry

Baking

Baking needs an oven within 2 tiles: "You must be near an oven to bake that."

Food	Cooking needed	Always succeeds at	Made from	Fills
Bread loaf	Any	100.0	1 dough	3
Pan of cookies	Any	100.0	1 cookie mix	4
Cake	Any	100.0	1 cake mix	10
Muffins	Any	100.0	1 sweet dough	4
Baked quiche	Any	100.0	1 unbaked quiche	5
Baked meat pie	Any	100.0	1 unbaked meat pie	5
Sausage pizza	Any	100.0	1 uncooked sausage pizza	6
Cheese pizza	Any	100.0	1 uncooked cheese pizza	6
Baked fruit pie	Any	100.0	1 unbaked fruit pie	5
Baked peach cobbler	Any	100.0	1 unbaked peach cobbler	5
Baked apple pie	Any	100.0	1 unbaked apple pie	5
Baked pumpkin pie	Any	100.0	1 unbaked pumpkin pie	5

Barbecue

Barbecue needs a fire within 2 tiles: "You must be near a fire source to cook." Remember that barbecue cooks your whole stack at once.

Food	Cooking needed	Always succeeds at	Made from	Buy the raw food from	Fills
Cooked bird	Any	100.0	Raw bird	Butchers (9 gold)	5
Chicken leg	Any	100.0	Raw chicken leg	Butchers (6 gold)	4
Fish steak	Any	100.0	Raw fish steak	Fishermen (3 gold), or cut from fish you catch	3
Fried eggs	Any	100.0	Eggs	Farmers (3 gold)	4
Leg of lamb	Any	100.0	Raw leg of lamb	Butchers (9 gold)	5
Cut of ribs	Any	100.0	Raw ribs	Butchers (16 gold)	5

Savage kin paint

Savage kin paint is mixed from a sack of flour and a tribal berry . About 1 in 10 female Savages and 1 in 10 Savage Shamans carry a tribal berry.

It needs more than 80.0 Cooking. At exactly 80.0 you always fail, and from 80.1 you never do. Making it never raises your skill.
Double-click the paint in your backpack to put it on: "You now bear the markings of the savage tribe. Your body paint will last about a week or you can remove it with an oil cloth." You look like a savage.
While painted, Savages, Savage Riders and Savage Shamans won't attack you.
If you attack one of them, the paint burns off and you take 50 damage: "Your skin is scorched as the tribal paint burns away!"
Wipe it off early with an oil cloth (made with Tailoring).
You can't put it on while polymorphed, incognito or already disguised.

Eating

Double-click food to eat it. Each food fills you up by its fill value, and you can hold up to 20. If you're tired, every meal also gives you back 6 to 8 stamina, plus 1 for every 5 points of fill.

You get a little hungrier every 5 minutes. Being hungry has no other effect, so food is mainly a quick stamina top-up.

Message	How full you are
You eat the food, but are still extremely hungry.	Under 5
You eat the food, and begin to feel more satiated.	5 to 9
After eating the food, you feel much less hungry.	10 to 14
You feel quite full after consuming the food.	15 to 19
You manage to eat the food, but you are stuffed!	Full (20)
You are simply too full to eat any more!	You're full and can't eat

Watch out for poison. Food can be poisoned, and poisoned food looks just like normal food. Use Taste Identification to check food you didn't make.

Training Cooking

Every attempt can raise your Cooking, whether it succeeds or fails, all the way to 100.0. Every recipe except savage kin paint trains you equally.
Below 10.0 you gain on every attempt. Above that, each attempt has a chance to gain 0.1.
Your chance to gain drops as you get closer to your Cooking cap and to your total skill cap.
Reaching 100.0 adds Cooking to the Skills Mastered count on your achievements.
Town cooks, bakers, farmers, fur traders, herbalists and gypsies will also teach you the basics for a fee.

Suggested path

Since every recipe trains the same, use the cheapest ingredients and cook one at a time (a whole stack is only one skill check).

Cooking	Make	Cost each
0 to 100	Fish steaks from raw fish steaks, or fried eggs	3 gold, or free if you fish
Any time	Dough, if you have flour and water	About 5 gold

Stand next to a lit heating stand or an inn's fireplace and grill your fish steaks one by one. A fisher can catch, cut and cook their own for free.

Messages you'll see

Message	What it means
You create the item.	Success.
You failed to create the item, and some of your materials are lost.	The attempt failed and the ingredients are gone.
You must be near a fire source to cook.	Barbecue needs a fire within 2 tiles.
You must be near an oven to bake that.	Baking needs an oven within 2 tiles.
You must be near a flour mill to do that.	Flour needs a mill within 2 tiles.
You lack the required skill to craft this item.	Savage kin paint needs more than 80.0 Cooking.
The tool must be on your person to use.	Put your cooking tool in your backpack.
You have worn out your tool!	Your tool broke. Grab a spare.

Tips

Buy a heating stand. For 2 gold you have a fire wherever you set it down and light it.
Cook one at a time while training, in whole stacks once you rarely fail.
Carve what you kill. Cows, deer, sheep and chickens give free meat.
Buy flour unless you're near wheat and a mill. It's only 3 gold.
Cake fills the most (10), so it's the best food to carry for stamina.
Taste-test food you didn't make yourself.