Cooking is one of the Crafting Trade Skills in Amazon's new MMO, New World.
There's no prerequisite to getting started with this skill, just take the raw meats, herbs and spices you've gathered to a Kitchen in a Settlement and off you go.
Be mindful that you'll need a higher level Kitchen to cook up better dishes, so make sure you visit a Settlement which has leveled up its workstations.
Is Cooking for me?
The answer is 'of course' -- you'll need food for your adventures, whether to restore health and mana in the heat of battle or offer those all-important buffs.
Cooking is a fairly simple job overall, the only limit being the resources you gather. It has the most diverse set of ingredients, so you'll need to put in some time farming plants and herbs and killing creatures.
Don't be selective here - gather absolutely everything you see, and kill everything that moves. You'll need an unholy amount of meat to max the profession!
Cooking Leveling Guide
Should you wish to speed up your progress in Cooking from 0-200, we've put together a dedicated guide.
From restorative dishes to those that grant buffs, what's the best way to level up your Cooking skill in New World? This guide helps budding chefs get their virtual Michelin stars and reach their maximum potential.
Where to find Cooking resources
As mentioned, there's an awful lot of range in the ingredients needed for Cooking recipes.
Herbs are found in the wilds and vegetables gathered from Supply Crates and fields surrounding farmsteads, while meat can be obtained from all kinds of creatures.
Some ingredients will need to be refined too, such as butter, cheese, and seasonings. For dairy products, a tip is to milk the resident cow at most major Settlements.
Many ingredients are regional in nature too, so you'll have to do a fair bit of travelling to get all the resources you need!
Check out our dedicated guide for Herbs & Spices.
From Basil to Ginger, Paprika to Taragon, you're going to need a bunch of herbs and spices if you want to level up your Cooking skill in New World. Here's where you'll find them.
Cooking: Most notable items to craft
The recipes you should prioritize are all health, mana, and other recovery foods. When harvesting and gathering, try to add rarity boosting perks and bonuses so you can claim some of the more rare ingredients -- these will prove crucial down the line.
Other foods are highly circumstantial, and are either made to order or made to sell.
Notable recipes include:
Travel Rations and other recovery recipes are a must-have.
Unlike potions, you can regenerate life out of combat, and for a much reduced cost in terms of resources or cooldowns.
With Potions being incredibly resource intensive, food is almost mandatory to survive.
Whether boosting your core stats such as Strength or Intelligence or secondary resources such as Stamina, time-limited boosting foods will be key to maxing out your potential.
These dishes will boost your Crafting prowess, helping you make better gear.
Other similar foods include those which boost Gathering skill temporarily.
Similarly to the Trade Skill-boosting foods, this will prove important in helping you catch those elusive fish.
Leveling is a a big part of any MMO, and New World doesn't make it easy with long quest chains and plentiful settlement tasks. We've put together this guide to help you reach max level quickly.
