Cooking

Cooking

Cooking turns various items (raw meat and fish, flour, and spider parts to name a few) into food that restores health and even conveys short-term buffs to various statistics. Cooking requires a heat source of some type, such as a stove or cooking fire. Fortunately, when you first train cooking, you also gain the ability to create a fire anywhere with Basic Campfire. You don’t need any tools to create a Basic Campfire.

At higher levels, Cooking buffs go beyond Stamina improvements and start to provide bonuses to different stats. These are very nice, especially considering the low cost involved in creating them. Food isn’t hard to gather, and it takes only a few moments to start a fire.

Any character benefits from Cooking. It’s easiest to keep up with when you start as soon as possible and use the materials you get from looting enemies. If you are also working on Fishing, there are many recipes available that allow you to cook your catches.

PRACTICING COOKING

For easier access to the menus, you can put both Cooking and Basic Campfire abilities on an Action Bar. Clicking Cooking opens a menu of all the recipes you know. Clicking Basic Campfire creates a fire should you need a heat source. Some recipes call for special spices or other items, but these are available from Cooking vendors, and most Trade vendors.

MORE FUN WITH COOKING

There are daily quests available only to characters with Cooking. Visit Shattrath City in Outland, Dalaran in Northrend, or any of the Horde and Alliance cities to obtain these quests. Until you learn Pandaren Cooking, these daily quests reward Epicurean’s Awards. When you become proficient in Pandaren Cooking, the quests found in your faction’s cities award Ironpaw Tokens instead. There are Achievements tied to these daily quests as well as unique recipes, which can’t be obtained in any other way.

On a final note, you can’t go wrong learning Cooking if you plan on raiding or running heroic dungeons. Cooked meals provide a variety of statistical bonuses (although only one type of stat boost from cooking can be active at a time), and there are even feasts you can set out for anyone in your party to eat and reap their benefits. While not everyone needs to be a cook, someone needs to create and distribute the food to your group, and only you know what type of food buff is best for your character.

Pandaren Bonuses

DRAENOR COOKING

Cooking in Warlords of Draenor has been vastly streamlined for easier food production. Most basic food recipes in Draenor can be learned and created at skill level 1. However, the more proficient your skill level is the more servings of a recipe you can make per crafting. There are two tiers of food you can create, and two feasts you can create as well. All food recipes use meat, fish, and herbs commonly found all over Draenor. With your Garrison’s Herb Garden, you should have no problem getting all the ingredients you need to dish up some Draenor cuisine!

Draenor food now only provides buff increases to Secondary Stats. The basic level of food recipes will provide +50 to a particular Secondary Stat. The only exception to this is Stamina. The Stamina buff for basic food is slightly higher. Basic recipes do not require herbs, simply meat or fish from around Draenor, and eggs that can be purchased from Traders in your Garrison for Garrison Resources.

The second tier of food you can create provides +75 buff to a particular Secondary Stat. Again, the only exception to this is Stamina food, which provides a slightly higher buff. This higher level food requires you to combine two basic food items along with Draenor herbs. Feasts are available for either 10 or 25 players, and are made with large amounts of meat, fish, and eggs.

Sometimes while cooking, you’ll come up with a recipe idea that teaches you a new Draenor recipe. Similarly, you can occasionally learn a new recipe simply by tasting a dish you haven’t learned the recipe for. In addition to the streamlined method of food production, Cooking also has its own Battle Pet, Lil’ Leftovers.

Draenor Cooking Recipes

Feasts