Cooking

[Gurney]

Anyone found any use for this yet, experimented much ? I play slowly, but im a little obsessive collecting lol and i edited my first Wiki page today so i should have some more info soon, just wondering if anyone has a headstart on this one.

From what i've seen, most of the recipes seem pretty useless, a few Health here, a few Stamina there, need to eat 12 of them to get full health, doubly pointless with the naturally regenerating health in Skyrim.

But also some of them look excellent. For example a few recipes give something like "Stamina increased 50 plus Stamina regen 2-a-sec for 720 seconds", those ones and the magicka equivalent look awesome for those long and dangerous Dragon or Boss fights, or perhaps for long magic skill-up sessions without wasting potions or having to rest every few casts.

Just from what's on the Wiki, none of them look to be worth much as saleable craft goods tho, not really a moneymaker craft, seems like a person might as well just sell the raw ingredients, maybe better with a high speech skill and perks.

Anyone found any truly godlike food recipes that aren't on the Wiki yet ? "Spicy Giant Mammoth T-Bone Steak of Berserk Pwning" anyone, want fries with that ?

[scribbane]

I believe the main use of cooking is to give another level to immersion. It's a way for even the thickest barbarian to regenerate health if he doesn't know how to make potions. He can go out into the wild, kill some deer, and have some venison. Sure it may not restore his health as well as a potion, but it's useful for Roleplaying purposes. You can almost truly make your character live off the land through the crafting system now, which is pretty cool.

[Talamare]

I think cooking is because a lot of people complained that mixing apples and pumpkin some how made you an alchemist

[Elegost]

I remeber Todd saying not everything in a game has to have a purpose it just helps with the immersion

[Will Zurmacht]

The benefits are greater at lower levels. Some of the basic dishes are almost as good as a minor healing pot. That said, a few of the dishes really shine: Elsweyr Fondue is pretty huge, but it requires moon sugar, which I think is a rare. Try sticking beef stew on a hotkey... err, that didn't come out right, but the stamina boost and 12 minutes of stamina regen can make those long runs between undiscovered points of interest easier early on.

[Lord_Monkfish]

I really wish cooking was more useful. I love the idea, that you must do everything you can to stay alive in this harsh world, but as your health pool increases +10 is just pointless! I wish Skyrim had a 'hardcore' mode like Fallout: New Vegas - on hardcore mode and top difficulty cooking in that game was important! You really were a wastelander and must do everything just to live. Admittedly some of the recipes do seem very strong (the magicka recipe and some of the stamina increasing ones) - I think some healing recipes need to be stronger though. The ones that require a lot of ingrediants could be improved to provide +50 health, that seems reasonable to me.

[Lord Elvewyn]

It's an alternative to regular health potions. Me I usually scoff down a stack of carrots etc if I'm at risk - basic healing doesn't work too well in combat and I haven't bothered with health potions because of all the food available. Check the stats but the best recipes give you something like 5 points of health for every 0.1 Kg which is comparable to the 0.5 Kg 25 point heal of basic potions. Vegetable Soup's another that might be okay, it's also one of the few that doesn't require alchemical salt.

[Will Zurmacht]

it's also one of the few that doesn't require alchemical salt.

I wouldn't skimp on the salt. There's a stack of 4 in every other generic barrel in the world.

[Lord Elvewyn]

True but it's an alchemical ingredient not just a cooking ingredient.

[Rose of Sithis]

So far I haven't really found a use for it, other than it being fun. :3 Though I don't think people appreciate me randomly walking into their house and using their cooking spit. :/

[Dark Spark]

It's for the folks who think that nutrition shouldn't be supplied solely through the mixture of flowers and insects.

Unless, of course, you have thing for smashing mountain blossoms and honey bees together for a potion which restores your stamina. Most of us would just settle for honey in our herbal tea.

[OblivionDuruza]

While the split was for immersions sake (what da ya know, Bethesda actually listens to all the people who jump online and complain), cooking itself has its benefits in-game. You can cook meat, increasing the magnitude of its effect, and the fact that cooking deals with restoring health and stamina, not other mumbo jumbo means you don't have to taste test random ingredients to find the effect you want, you just kill an animal and make off with it's carcass. Much more simple, the no frills approach to 'alchemy'.

[BvBPL]

Cooking's cool. The stews and fondue are nice and I think my character got through the first few levels with grilled leeks for HP restoration. Then my character moved on to alchemy and got a stash of potions and never looked back.

I don't think cooking needs to be on par with alchemy or any other skill to be an interesting element of the game.

Also, while not something you can actually cook, I think mammoth cheese is worthy of note. Mmmm... mammoth cheese.

[Evil-i]

Also, while not something you can actually cook, I think mammoth cheese is worthy of note. Mmmm... mammoth cheese.

* Has mental pictures of milking a mammoth... *

Thanks. My appetite will return soon. By Easter, maybe.

[D_Lay]

* Has mental pictures of milking a mammoth... *

You know you're doing it right when they purr

[tharg]

Anyone found any use for this yet, experimented much ?

It is a way of making 'health potions' without inflating your level with non combat related skill advances.

[Theificka]

It is useful for boosts when you don't have alchemy on your side.

Basically the Warrior's way of healing since magic has Restoration and stealth has Potions.

[Evil-i]

While almost every recipe is a money-loser in terms of raw ingredient versus cooked meal value, cooking is a quick and handy role-playing way of streamlining your inventory in terms of clutter, and the cooked items also save weight compared to the raw ingredients. The cooked items also tend to have better effects than the raw ingredients.

[Gallus]

Cooking is useful at low levels, but soon after it loses it's usefulness.

It could be improved upon, but I suspect that I wasn't intended to be an alchemy replacement (since there are no skill levels / perks associated with cooking). It was just something to do to get you started in the game.

I would like to see it expanded on. Maybe hunger / thirst based buffs or debuffs would be nice. Just something to keep it interesting for veteran characters, not just people starting off.

[Dark Spark]

I was hoping that, as the game progressed, you gained access to more (and better) recipes.

I mean, what is the point of carrying around dog meat if the only way to eat it is raw?

[Evil-i]

This might be taking things a bit far for some, but, instead of being limited to pre-made in-game recipes, it might have been interesting to have an alchemical aspect to cooking, in the sense that you could experiment with different ingredients and create new meals with different properties.

[Biggsydaboss]

Evil I. I don't think that's taking it too far at all. I'd love to RP as some kind of celebrity chef of Skyrim

Spoiler:

I know there's a DB quest on that subject

. Making all kinds of weird & wonderful meals. Maybe they should expand the jobs list you could do to include cooking. Maybe even make it a questline where you could work yourself up to the position of a Jarl's cook. Oh yeh I could get groovy with gravy in the kitchen baby.

[Evil-i]

Evil I. I don't think that's taking it too far at all. I'd love to RP as some kind of celebrity chef of Skyrim

"You see those chefs from Hammerfell? They've got curved ladles. Curved. Ladles."

"Let me guess......someone stole your sweetroll."

"I used to be a chef like you. Then I took a potato ricer in the knee."

[martez87]

I've been using a mod for the past couple of days that pretty much makes cooking and eating essential. I was a big fan of the hardcore mode on Fallout New Vegas; I like the survivalist thing. I could have just eaten the food for immersion and RP purposes but I would often forget and it felt a bit pointless. This mod basically stops magicka, health and stamina regenerating while you are hungry. Different meals and foods have different benefits. It's not quite the return of hardcore mode but it works quite well until something better inevitably comes along.

You can find it here:
http://www.skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3942