Cooking

[soda popinski]

Is there any reason to cook?

It seems like all of the food weighs a fair amount, and only offers minimal health regeneration, especially when compared with potions which typically only weight a half pound.

I pretty much avoid picking up food, but I am wondering if I am missing something

[Dark Spark]

Cooking provides a fast and early means of concocting something that will heal you and restore stamina. Alchemy requires experimentation, the recipes for the cooking pot are all spelled out for you.

Alchemical worktables are relatively rare and far-flung— cooking pots are a much more common fixture.

Cooking won't trump alchemy, but it sure beats having to eat yellow snow.

[Frost Mage]

It also amazingly fun to roleplay with.

[Jeff]

Cooking, choping wood, mining, smelting, and milling, are just things added in, to add to more of a Roleplaing aspect.

[The_Noob]

Stews and Roasts help much better in tight situations when you run out of health potions.

This happens alot, so I continually cook.

[Dark Spark]

Cooking, choping wood, mining, smelting, and milling, are just things added in, to add to more of a Roleplaing aspect.

We can saw whole logs at a mill, too. Not much for gameplay training, but one day I will catch a screenshot of my dainty Imperial hefting a 1-ton long onto the chute for the bragging rights.

[unokitsune]

mining and smelting to get you your ingots for cheaper smithing. The tanning racks for turning the hides into leather and leather stripps also for smithing. The chopping wood is to get a litle bit of money at early levels when you sell the wood to certain people especially when the farm is short of produce to pluck and sell to the farm's workers. The cooking, well depends on what you make. Elswer Fondue is great to have! requires Ale, Moon Sugar and Eidar Cheese Wheel ((looks like bleu cheese, whole wheel not sliced)) And some vendors even sell the Eidar Cheese Wheel and Ale, not sure if it restocks on their shelves or not. Examples are Beisus of the Pawned Prawn in Riften. Moon Sugar can get from Khajiit caravans or more rarely from Alchemists. Moon Sugar + Salt gives a good potion!

[Dark Spark]

... Elswer Fondue is great to have! requires Ale, Moon Sugar and Eidar Cheese Wheel ((looks like bleu cheese, whole wheel not sliced)) And some vendors even sell the Eidar Cheese Wheel and Ale, not sure if it restocks on their shelves or not. Examples are Beisus of the Pawned Prawn in Riften. Moon Sugar can get from Khajiit caravans or more rarely from Alchemists. Moon Sugar + Salt gives a good potion!

I 'borrowed' my first cups of Moon Sugar from a Bosmer smuggler standing along the road. When I mentioned that the practice was illegal, he decided to settle the issue with a fist-to-fist brawl...

...Here's the kicker: my character is a dual-wielding thief/assassin type, and the script to initate a 'brawl' only removed my right-handed weapon. When I saw that my character was holding only her trusty dagger in the left hand, I hotkeyed my right-handed weapon to bring it back online.

Needless to say, the Bosmer drug-peddlar cried for mercy in short order. I hope I don't get a bounty/thugs on my tail for the misstep. In any case, the fellow was taught a lesson and ended up perfectly willing to sell me his wares.

[fabittar]

They should put 'addiction' in Skyrim like they did with Fallout. Addicted to alcohol, addicted to Moon Sugar, addicted to Horses. LOL

[Alchemist]

Addiction to Horse Meat would be the most fun thing they could do. Having to sneak around and kill horses like a barbarian orc would do, just for the meat.

Cooking is helpful if you can make a stew. Makes 3 more coins than just the ingredients, and enough health to keep on hand. It's also just a plain fun thing to do if you like to hang out at inns like I'm starting to get in to. Show up at the Bannered Mare from 10 to 12 pm. It's crazy how alive the place becomes, and cooking doesn't interrupt the flow of things, so I buy ingredients and make stuff.

[unokitsune]

... Elswer Fondue is great to have! requires Ale, Moon Sugar and Eidar Cheese Wheel ((looks like bleu cheese, whole wheel not sliced)) And some vendors even sell the Eidar Cheese Wheel and Ale, not sure if it restocks on their shelves or not. Examples are Beisus of the Pawned Prawn in Riften. Moon Sugar can get from Khajiit caravans or more rarely from Alchemists. Moon Sugar + Salt gives a good potion!

I 'borrowed' my first cups of Moon Sugar from a Bosmer smuggler standing along the road. When I mentioned that the practice was illegal, he decided to settle the issue with a fist-to-fist brawl...

...Here's the kicker: my character is a dual-wielding thief/assassin type, and the script to initate a 'brawl' only removed my right-handed weapon. When I saw that my character was holding only her trusty dagger in the left hand, I hotkeyed my right-handed weapon to bring it back online.

Needless to say, the Bosmer drug-peddlar cried for mercy in short order. I hope I don't get a bounty/thugs on my tail for the misstep. In any case, the fellow was taught a lesson and ended up perfectly willing to sell me his wares.

you're lucky! I only came across one guy and ended up killing him got a little off his corpse though.

[Dark Spark]

...Cooking is helpful if you can make a stew. Makes 3 more coins than just the ingredients, and enough health to keep on hand. It's also just a plain fun thing to do if you like to hang out at inns like I'm starting to get in to. Show up at the Bannered Mare from 10 to 12 pm. It's crazy how alive the place becomes, and cooking doesn't interrupt the flow of things, so I buy ingredients and make stuff.

That is the greatest blessing of Skyrim over Oblivion: playing around with crap doesn't stop time and prolong that painful wait for the hour that the shops re-open.

[Talamare]

720 second stamina food are OP

as long as you have 1 stamina you can power attack, meaning with those foods you can power attack NONE STOP

[OblivionDuruza]

Cooking, while not just a roleplaying element that fans have been asking for and modding for a while now, is also a fairly viable way to not only make hunting actually viable, but also to produce healing effects without investing in Alchemy or even having to level the skill at all.

So while the primary purpose is to increase the roleplayability of Skyrim, just like mining/smelting, cooking has actual in-game use, to an extent.

[Gurney]

Vegetable soup is an excellent cheap and easy food to keep you alive through hard encounters at low levels.

[Ronok]

720 second stamina food are OP

as long as you have 1 stamina you can power attack, meaning with those foods you can power attack NONE STOP

Or to use a Bash.....nothing like BASHBASHBASHBASHBASHBASH and then wiping the bandit's face off your shield and watching your Stamina regen

I didnt know it worked for Power Attacks! tyvm for that one!

[Alchemist]

Cooking, choping wood, mining, smelting, and milling, are just things added in, to add to more of a Roleplaing aspect.

We can saw whole logs at a mill, too. Not much for gameplay training, but one day I will catch a screenshot of my dainty Imperial hefting a 1-ton long onto the chute for the bragging rights.

So far I know how to push a log on to a chute thing. Milling. How would I go about sawing?

Chopping wood has also grown on me. That [&@%!] who works for Belethor is always hogging the chopping block, though. If I can keep myself occupied doing something on the laptop (cheating maybe, I know) the chopping gets pretty relaxing. Again, it comes down to what goes on around you. If there's kids playing and people talking while you're doing a monotonous task, it becomes kind of beautiful. Erandur (follower of choice) is oddly enthusiastic about carrying stuff for me, so it's a complete experience.

[Dark Spark]

We can saw whole logs at a mill, too. Not much for gameplay training, but one day I will catch a screenshot of my dainty Imperial hefting a 1-ton long onto the chute for the bragging rights.

So far I know how to push a log on to a chute thing. Milling. How would I go about sawing? ...

There's a lever by the saw to activate the mechanism.

[Unionhack]

If you stick yourself to a eat-a-meal-a-day-or-die Roleplaying regimen, hunting for food and cooking is amazingly fun IMO.

[EMarkM]

It's also just a plain fun thing to do if you like to hang out at inns like I'm starting to get in to. Show up at the Bannered Mare from 10 to 12 pm. It's crazy how alive the place becomes, and cooking doesn't interrupt the flow of things, so I buy ingredients and make stuff.

This. This is pure roleplaying right here. This, for me, is what the game is all about.

"If you come back any time, be sure to stop by for a drink," says that bartender at a little far-flung village. "I sure will," I say aloud as I leave the inn to go find some poor beggar's lost sister. And...I do. On successful completion of the quest, I roll back into the bar, buy a huge number of drinks, kick back and enjoy the music and the general banter.

Cook and other such "non-levelling" tasks just add so much to that immersion.