by Berry O'Neill

Created on: July 16, 2009   Last Updated: July 20, 2009

Note: this is an overview for non-member cooking. There are various other foods that can only be made by members, but in general they are cooked in the same way as regular food is or are self-explanatory.

Cooking is both a fun and necessary skill on Runescape. When eaten, foods that are cooked restore hit points, and making food is always cheaper than buying it. Cooking is also useful in conjunction with fighting skills and fishing because the meat from killed monsters can be cooked. Furthermore, is easy and risk-free. It is always worthwhile to build cooking experience.

The most basic cooked items are monster and fish meat. These do not require any extra ingredients to make, just an oven or a fire. Many monsters drop meat when they are killed, like cows, rats, and bears. Chickens also drop chicken upon death. These meats can be cooked easily even at level-1 cooking.

Fish meat is cooked the same way as regular meat, but it comes in a much greater variety. Chefs can start out cooking anchovies, shrimp, sardines, and crayfish, which can all be cooked at level-1 cooking. At higher levels, there's also herring, trout, pike, salmon, tuna, lobster, and swordfish. Fish are very easy to catch, so they are a good choice for gaining cooking experience.

At higher levels, players can bake foods with dough. Dough is made by mixing a pot of flour with a container of water. There are three different kinds of dough: bread, pastry, and pizza. Bread dough requires no other ingredients to make bread. Pastry dough, however, is used with a pie dish and a filling (such as apples, red berries, or cooked meat) to make a pie. Pizza dough is used with tomatoes, cheese, and an optional topping, like anchovies or meat, to make a pizza.

Stew is made with a potato, a bowl of water, and cooked meat. These three ingredients are combined in the bowl and cooked. To make wine, only two ingredients are needed: a jug of water and grapes. Players don't have to cook wine; when the ingredients are mixed, after around fifteen seconds, the mixture ferments into either good wine or bad wine (bad wine should be thrown out).

Cake requires three ingredients: a pot of flour, a bucket of milk, and an egg (for chocolate cake, a bar of chocolate as well). Players mix these ingredients together in a cake tin and then cook it. Making cake is not a piece of cake, but it pays off with a high level of hit-point restoration and cooking experience.

Once players reach level 32 cooking, they are allowed to enter the cooking guild, which is located in Varrock just outside of the Grand Exchange. Players must wear a chef's hat to enter, which can be obtained by killing ogres or bought very cheaply. The cooking guild offers many raw materials to chefs, including chocolate, apples, and grapes, a cake tin, a flour pot, a jug, a pie dish, and a bowl. It also has a mill and a nearby wheat field, so players can make flour easily. There are several ovens and a sink, and a bank for members as well. Two foods that are commonly made in the guild are apple pie and wine, because the ingredients for both can be found inside the building. The cooking guild is one of the more useful guilds, especially as it is located right near the Grand Exchange.

The best thing about the cooking skill is its variety. Even for non-members, there are a multitude of foods that can be cooked. Cooking is a necessary skill for success in Runescape, and it is both easy and fun. Happy cooking!

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