Cooking

Save for using the bathroom and sleeping, no activity is more crucial to a Sim than eating. Food is a central part of every Sim’s life, so having a Sim around who can actually cook is a boon to everybody’s mood. However, very few Sims are awesome in the kitchen right away—even those with the Natural Cook trait. Cooking must be practiced. It’s hard work, but it has great rewards. Very few things offer a pick-me-up quite like a good meal.

Acquire by: Class, Prepare Meals, Read Cookbook

Development tools: Books, Meal Preparation Interactions, Foodstuffs, Recipes

Available Ages: Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder

The shortcomings of quick meals make developing the Cooking skill so important. Not every member of a household needs to excel at the skill, but a general acquaintance with it is very useful. Prepared meals build the Cooking skill while being made, can serve groups of Sims, and if made well, can improve mood.

Quality of Food

As the Sim develops the skill, the food they make improves. The more recipes learned also improves the variety of dishes served, which has a positive effect on every Sim who eats them. When a Sim first tries to cook a recipe, there is a good chance they will fail and create a disgusting version of the dish. It is still edible, but it hits Sims with a negative moodlet.

The more the dish is cooked and the level of the Cooking skill increase the recipe’s quality. Eventually, a dish the Sims once botched will provide great happiness for Sims, inspiring moodlets like Good Meal and Amazing Meal.

Recipes Learned

Two types of recipes are opened by developing the Cooking skill: learned recipes and acquired recipes. Learned recipes are purchased in the bookstore, but cannot be opened until the skill at a specific level. The acquired recipes are those automatically

Recipes that use harvestables grown by a Sim with the Gardening skill also use the quality of the harvest to determine the quality of the meal. The better quality the harvestable, the better the meal.

Poorly made food can also disgust other Sims. Bad food smells, but Foul or Putrid food results in the Nauseous moodlet.

gifted when the Sim reaches a specific cooking level.

Acquired recipes

You cannot make any recipe at any time of day, Sims have particular tastes for meals at certain times of the day. They want pancakes for breakfast, salad for lunch, and meat or pasta for dinner. Here are the meal times:

3 AM-10 AM: Breakfast

9 AM-3 PM on Weekends: Brunch

12 PM-5 PM: Lunch

5 PM‑3 AM: Dinner

Anytime: Dessert

The Costs of Cooking

Quick meals and snacks are free so that no Sim goes hungry. However, making prepared meals actually costs Simoleons. If Sims have the required ingredients in the fridge, no cost appears next to a recipe when selected from the interaction with the refrigerator.

If a recipe requires ingredients not in the fridge, then the cost of the needed ingredients is displayed next to the dish in the menu. Selecting that dish automatically deducts the required funds from the household account.

There is no need to drop everything and run for EverFresh. You also won’t need to start spending money right away, because fridges come with a few basic ingredients.

Skill Challenges

Star Chef: Star Chefs have prepared at least 50 meals, so they clearly know their way around the kitchen. The dishes they prepare are higher quality and thus more pleasing.

World-Class Chef: World-Class Chefs have prepared at least 75 dishes and are masters of the kitchen. World-Class Chefs prepare meals significantly faster.

Menu Maven: Menu Mavens have learned to prepare all recipes. Recipes are earned by improving the Cooking skill and can be purchased at the bookstore. Menu Mavens prepare higher quality food.