History

Cooking

Cooking is a secondary profession that turns meat, fish and a few store-bought ingredients into food. Cooked food restores health faster and further than vendor bread, and many dishes also give the "well fed" bonus, a stat buff that lasts long enough to cover a raid boss or a battleground. Any character can learn Cooking on top of their two primary professions.

Daryl Riknussun, the cooking trainer at the Bronze Kettle in Ironforge © Blizzard Entertainment

Type	Secondary profession
Skill	1-300
Needs	A cooking fire
Expert	[Expert Cookbook]
Artisan	Clamlette Surprise
Partner profession	Fishing

How it works

Every recipe has to be cooked next to a fire: a campfire, a brazier, a kitchen stove or one of the cooking fires found in inns and camps. A cook can also make one anywhere with Basic Campfire, which uses [Flint and Tinder] and a piece of [Simple Wood]. Recipes come from trainers, vendors, quests and drops, and most use meat from beasts a character has already killed while questing, or fish caught through Fishing.

The food a cook makes restores health over about half a minute while the eater stays seated. Better dishes add a buff: eat for at least ten seconds and the character becomes well fed, gaining a bonus such as 12 Stamina and Spirit for 15 minutes. Only one well fed buff can be active at a time, and it does not stack with itself.

Skill gains work like the other professions: orange recipes always give a point, yellow usually do, green rarely do and grey never do.

Trainers and skill ranks

Cooking follows the four ranks of every profession, but in Classic only the first two come from trainers:

Apprentice and Journeyman (1-150) are taught by cooking trainers in every capital, such as Daryl Riknussun in Ironforge, Aska Mistrunner in Thunder Bluff, Eunice Burch in Undercity and Zamja in Orgrimmar. Journeyman needs character level 10.
Expert (125-225) comes from a book, [Expert Cookbook], sold by Shandrina in Ashenvale and Wulan in Desolace. It needs level 20.
Artisan (200-300) is earned through a quest. Dirge Quikcleave, the cook at the inn in Gadgetzan in Tanaris, asks a cook with 225 skill for 12 Giant Eggs, 10 [Zesty Clam Meat] and 20 Alterac Swiss in Clamlette Surprise. He teaches Artisan Cooking in return, along with his own recipe.

Aska Mistrunner, the cooking trainer on High Rise in Thunder Bluff © Blizzard Entertainment

Leveling route

A rough route most cooks follow:

1-50: [Charred Wolf Meat], [Roasted Boar Meat] and [Spiced Wolf Meat] from wolf and boar meat in the starting zones, or [Herb Baked Egg] from eggs.
50-125: the simple meat dishes and fish recipes sold by cooking suppliers, along with [Westfall Stew] from the Westfall quest line and [Blood Sausage].
125-175: recipes using bear and crocolisk meat, and the fish of the middle zones.
175-225: [Mithril Head Trout] from [Raw Mithril Head Trout], [Dragonbreath Chili] and other recipes from Dustwallow Marsh and Tanaris vendors, [Grilled Squid] and [Nightfin Soup] from Gikkix in Gadgetzan, and [Spotted Yellowtail] from [Raw Spotted Yellowtail].
225-300: [Monster Omelet] from Giant Eggs, [Tender Wolf Steak] from [Tender Wolf Meat], and fish such as [Baked Salmon] and [Mightfish Steak] cooked from catches in the high-level zones.

Many cooks raise Cooking alongside Fishing, cooking each catch as it comes in, and level both to 300 without spending much gold.

Best-known dishes

Classic raiders carried a few dishes for their buffs:

[Smoked Desert Dumplings] gives 20 Strength. Its recipe comes from Desert Recipe at Cenarion Hold in Silithus, and it was standard for melee raiders late in Classic.
[Grilled Squid] gives 10 Agility, and [Nightfin Soup] restores 8 mana every 5 seconds, a favorite of healers.
[Runn Tum Tuber Surprise] gives 10 Intellect; its recipe is found in Dire Maul.
[Monster Omelet] and [Tender Wolf Steak] give 12 Stamina and Spirit and were the common all-purpose meals.
[[forever:item:21023]] gives 25 Stamina. Its recipe came from [[forever:quest:8586]] given by Dirge Quikcleave during the war effort before the Opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
[Dragonbreath Chili] makes a character belch flame at enemies struck in melee for a short time, a novelty that also did real damage.

Dirge Quikcleave, the Gadgetzan chef who taught Artisan Cooking © Blizzard Entertainment

Some dishes are remembered for fun rather than stats. [Savory Deviate Delight], from a recipe dropped by beasts in The Barrens, turns the eater into a pirate or a ninja for a while, and is still a favorite at guild events. Recipes that used rare ingredients, such as [[forever:item:21024]] from the chimaeroks of Feralas, were worth gold on the auction house.

Pairing with other professions

Fishing is Cooking's partner: most of the best dishes in Classic use fish, and a fisher can feed a whole raid. Hunters often take Cooking to feed their pets, and Skinning fits too, since a skinner kills beasts anyway and their meat goes into recipes. Because Cooking is a secondary profession, it does not take one of the two primary profession slots, and most raiders kept it at 300.