Cooking & Taste ID FAQ

Crashster · Feb 6, 2001

Firstly, welcome to the Chef's forum, make yourself at home and ask anything you want if it's not detailed already answered in this FAQ

Note, that Chefs require tools (ie skillet, rolling pin, flour sifter) to cook these days, unlike in the old days when you just needed the ingredients. See info on tools within the FAQ below

A few general questions (taken from the original FAQ):

1.) Why in the world would you want to be a Chef?
2.) How do these tools work?
3.) Where can I be trained in cooking?
4.) My cooking is XX.X%. What should I make to raise skill?
5.) Can GM Chefs apply a maker's mark to the items they create?
6.) Where can I cook my food?
7.) Where can I fill my water pitcher?
8.) Help, I can't cook my pies!! What do I do?
9.) How do you harvest wheat?
10.) How do you use a flour mill?
11.) Help, my flour mill doesn't make flour!!
12.) Does food have any affect on skill gain or magery success?
13.) Does eating do anything beneficial?
14.) How many fishsteaks/bread loaves from 0 to gm?
15.) Is cooking profitable?
16.) What other skills go good with cooking?
17.) Where can I buy ingredients and other cooking supplies?
18.) How do you make tribal paint?
19.) What is the minimum Cooking skill required to mix tribal paint?
20.) What else can a Chef make, and how do you make it?
21.) Got any tips to share?
22.) How do I use the menu?


The answers:
1.) Why in the world would you want to be a Chef?
- In truth, if you have to ask this question then perhaps you'll never understand...
Currently there is little benefit to being a chef, except for immense RP possibilities and fun

2.) How do these tools work?
- The tools are a chef's best friend, spouses not included.
There is a seperate section detail the tools in all their glory further down

3.) Where can I be trained in cooking?
- You can be trained in the basics of the cullinary arts by the following NPCs:
Bakers, Cooks and Herbalists using the standard "(name) train cooking"

4.) My cooking is XX.X%. What should I make to raise skill?
- There was once a day, long before most of us were around when it was commonly beleived that making cakes was the best course of action, I've never been too sure about that, and it certainly isn't the case now...
With the general ideas of gaining skills, each skill check comes complete with a chance to gain based on the difficulty of the skill check (The theory being that if you have only just learned how to do something your more likely to gain experience in the skill through making it than you are if you've been making it for years previously). This is where the cooking skill stumbles a little...
There is no skill base. With everything but Tribal Paint your chances of succeeding are equal to your skill (0.0% skill and you'll never succeed, 100.0% skill and you'll never fail), and so any cooking action with a skill check (excluding tribal paint) will give you a chance to gain.
The recommended method is to cook bread until you stop gaining for a long period of time (meaning you've either hit skill-cap or a gain wall), then cook a stack of 500-1000 fish steaks all in one go, repeating until you gain. This is a strongly beleived method of braking through the walls, and after you break the wall then return to bread. All the way to GM.

5.) Can GM Chefs apply a maker's mark to the items they create?
- A GM chef can make food with a makers mark providing it is not stackable
The final step of creating the item has a 55% chance of being exceptional, and thus bearing a makers mark.
These items have no benefit other than being a nice centrepeice.

6.) Where can I cook my food?
- There are 4 different types of cooking that have different requirements for cooking:
Ingredients - Can be done anywhere, does not require the presence of a heat source
Preparations - Can be done anywhere, does not require the presence of a heat source
Baking - Requires the presence to an oven
Barbecue - Requires the presence of any heat source (oven, forge, campfire, heating stand) on the floor.

7.) Where can I fill my water pitcher?
- The easiest place to fill a water pitcher is from a water trough. These are found in some bakers shops and most stables.
note: Jhelom has no water troughs at all

8.) Help, I can't cook my pies!! What do I do?
- anyone who cooked before publish 14 will recall a bug which prevented the succesful cooking of pies.
This is now fixed.

9.) How do you harvest wheat?
- Go to any wheat field and start double clicking on the wheat stalks growing out of the ground; it will turn into sheaves which can then be picked up. Only the "tall" stalks of wheat can be harvested, not the "short" ones.

10.) How do you use a flour mill?
- I won't tell you the old way... as far as I know it still works and is still as buggy as before. The new way is to select "Sack of Flour" from the ingredients section of the menu.

11.) Help, my flour mill doesn't make flour!!
- See question 10, the only known causes are:
a.) No wheat (see question 9)
b.) You are using the method of milling (see question 10)

12.) Does food have any affect on skill gain or magery success?
You tell me... I only work here...
Some sources such as the <a href="http://www.ubb.org">UBB</a> insist it is unnecesary, whereas others insist it does.
As I always say "An empty Tummy is a sad tummy", surely it can't hurt to have a happy tummy.

13.) Does eating do anything beneficial?
- Yes. Eating food, particularly filling foods like ribs will recover a portion of lost stamina, much like a refresh potion. Being full also allows stamina and life to recover at a faster rate on its own.

14.) How many fishsteaks/bread loaves from 0 to gm?
- This is currently unclear, but if you haven't made it to GM yet then you haven't cooked enough/php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

15.) Is cooking profitable?
- It won't get you a lot of gold, no. But it is very rewarding in non material ways (...which I imagine you may not interested in if you're asking this). While it may not be the most profitable profession, a new Chef will still be able to acquire enough cash to keep on cooking. For town-bound Chefs, visit a Butcher. Buy some raw birds (3gp) and cook them. Sell them to Cooks at taverns for 10gp. Chicken legs (2gp) sell too (6gp). Or you can bake bread, buying a sack of flour (3gp) and selling the bread (2gp each, up to a maximum of 20 loaves per sack)
For those Chefs with a bit of fighting ability, kill birds and cook them, then sell the meat as above. If you hunt animals that give ribs (about everything in the game), then sell the raw ribs (4gp) to the Butcher or cook them and sell them (7gp) to the Innkeepers.

16.) What other skills go good with cooking?
- Anything you like. The beauty of cooking is that it doesn't need to rely on other skills. Tailoring is a good choice, however, especially if you're slaughtering your own animals for the meat. (You might as well put those hides to use while you're out collecting ribs, or vice versa.) If you are a Chef/Tailor, nothing on a corpse goes to waste.

17) Where can I buy ingredients and other cooking supplies? 
- There are many different types of NPC's who would be happy to sell you everything you need:

Cooks sell the all-important cooking tools (flour sifters, skillets and rolling pins) as well as bread, pies, cakes, muffins, cheese, cooked birds, legs of lamb, chicken legs, misc. vegetables in bowls, soup, stew, roast pigs, sacks of flour, and honey.
Bakers sell bread, pies, cakes, muffins, french bread, cookies, pizzas, honey, sacks of flour [20 uses ea], and bowls of flour [1 use ea].
Butchers sell bacon, bacon slabs (sometimes), ham, sausage, raw chicken legs, raw birds, raw legs of lamb, and raw cuts of ribs.
Farmers sell pumpkins, eggs, pitchers of milk, apples, pears, peaches, and other misc. fruit/vegetables.
Innkeepers sell misc. beverages, glass pitchers, bread, cheese, cooked birds, legs of lamb, chicken legs, cuts of ribs, misc. vegetables in bowls, soup, stew, pies, apples, pears, and other misc. fruit/vegetables.
Provisioners sell bread, legs of lamb, chicken legs, cooked birds, misc. beverages, apples, and pears.
Ranchers sell apples, pears, peaches, pumpkins, eggs, and other misc. fruit/vegetables.
Tavernkeepers sell misc. beverages, glass pitchers, bread, cheese, cooked birds, legs of lamb, misc. vegetables in bowls, soup, and pies.
Waiters/Waitresses sell misc. beverages, glass pitchers, bread, cheese, cooked birds, legs of lamb, misc. vegetables in bowls, soup, stew, and pies.

18.) How do you make tribal paint?
There is a selection in the menu under "Preparations"

19.) What is the minimum Cooking skill required to mix tribal paint? 
- 80.0 displayed Cooking skill is needed to mix tribal paint.

20.) What else can a Chef make, and how do you make it? 
- Here are all the menu selections listed under category:

Ingredients
Sack of Flour (Requires: Wheat)
Dough (Requires: Flour (1) Water (1))*
Sweet Dough (Requires: Dough (1) Honey (1))
Cake Mix (Requires: Sweet Dough (1) Flour (1))
Cookie Mix (Requires: Sweet Dough (1) Honey (1))

Preparations
Unbaked Quiche (Requires: Dough (1) Eggs (1))
Unbaked Meat Pie (Requires: Dough (1) Raw Meat (fish) (1))
Uncooked Sausage Pizza (Requires: Dough (1) Sausages (1))
Uncooked Cheese Pizza (Requires: Dough (1) Cheese (1))
Unbaked Fruit Pie (Requires: Dough (1) Pears (1))
Unbaked Peach Cobbler (Requires: Dough (1) Peaches (1))
Unbaked Apple Pie (Requires: Dough (1) Apples (1))
Unbaked Pumpkin Pie (Requires: Dough (1) Pumpkin (1))
Savage Skin Paint (Requires: Tribal Berry (1) Flour (1))

Baking
Bread Loaf (Requires: Dough (1) )
Pan of Cookies (Requires: Cookie Mix (1))
Cake (Requires: Cake Mix (1))
Muffins (Requires: Sweet dough (1))
Baked Quiche (Requires: Unbaked Quiche (1))
Baked Meat Pie (Requires: Unbaked Meat Pie (1))
Sausage Pizza (Requires: Uncooked Sausage Pizza (1))
Cheese Pizza (Requires: Uncooked Cheese Pizza (1))
Baked Fruit Pie (Requires: Unbaked Fruit Pie (1))
Baked Peach Cobbler (Requires: Unbaked Peach Cobbler (1))
Baked Apple Pie (Requires: Unbaked Apple Pie (1))
Baked Pumpkin Pie (Requires: Unbaked Pumpkin Pie (1))

Barbecue
Cooked Bird (Requires: Raw Bird (1))
Chicken Leg (Requires: Raw Chicken Leg (1))
Fish Steaks (Requires: Raw Fish Steaks (1))
Fried Eggs (Requires: Raw Eggs (1))
Leg of Lamb (Requires: Raw Leg of Lamb (1))
Cut of Ribs (Requires: Raw Rib (1))

*dough requires 1 charge of flour to make, a full sack contains 20 charges, also, water charges are not used up (As long as the pitcher has been filled by the player once).

21.) Got any tips to share? 
- Here's a quick tip that is infinately useful to a training chef:
The menu has a category labelled “Last 10”, which lists the last 10 unique cooking attempts you have made. Create a lump of dough, then a loaf of bread. Now, click on the second button down and you will attempt to make that item and the listing for it will move to top of the list, leaving the other option conveniently in place under your mouse cursor, click again and they’ll swap.

22.) How do I use the menu?
- Check the menu section below

The Tools of the trade:

Chefs have a veritable arsenal of tools with which to vanquish their ingredients, leaving only finely cooked food in their wake. These are:
The rolling pin
The flour sifter
The skillet

All of the tools do the same job, and wear out after a random number of uses. Double clicking on a tool will bring up the menu, allowing you to select a type of cooking you wish to do:
The ingredients menu
The preparations menu
The baking menu - Page 1
The baking menu - Page 2
The barbecue menu

Quiby · Feb 12, 2002

1.) Why would you waste skill points on Taste ID?

2.) What NPC trains Taste ID?

3.) What are some complementary skills to Taste ID?

4.) How do I raise skill?

5.) How do I make a UO Assist macro to train Taste ID?

1.) Q: Why would you waste skill points on Taste ID?

A: There are several reasons, most notably RP purposes. Taste ID is useful for determining what type of potion that is, or what's in that keg. It will also tell you if a food item is poisoned. You may also want the challenge of training a difficult skill and the satisfaction of being an accomplished taste tester. Or maybe you just like to taste a lot of things....

2.) Q: What NPCs train taste ID?

A: The two NPC types that train Taste ID are Alchemists and Cooks. Cooks are found in taverns and alchemists are found in Mage/Alchemy shops.

3.) Q: What are some complementary skills for Taste ID?

A: Some good skills to have along with taste ID are cooking, alchemy, and poisoning. The cooking is obvious, the alchemy and poisoning are because you'll need a lot of poison to poison all those fish steaks.

4.) Q: How do I raise skill?

A: Taste ID is simple to raise, simply taste all potions and foods. Taste ID is target based so once you get a gain all your targets reset.

First you need to get 100 poisoned fishsteaks (preferably lesser poison) and place them in columns within a backpack so you are able to target all of the steaks. Then start at the beginning and taste ID every fishsteak until you get a gain, then start at the beginning again.

You will be able to raise your skill into the mid-high 60's just on those 100 fishsteaks. Once you go through all of those fishsteaks without a gain you need to make another bag with 100 poisoned fishsteaks and start going through them. Again, when you get a gain go back to the beginning of the first bag and work your way through them all again.

Below 72 Taste ID there is a good chance you will get poisoned from raising Taste ID. I recommend going to any shrine (preferably without any spawn) and when you get poisoned double click on the Ankh and the poison will be removed. This is much more efficient and cheaper than either casting cure or drinking a cure.

5.) Q: How do I make a UO Assist macro to train Taste ID?

A: Once you have your backpack of 100 poisoned fishsteaks stacked in columns, go to a shrine and stand next to the Ankh (you will only be able to carry 24 items with you since you have a pack full of fishsteaks.) Start recording the macro. Now Use Taste ID, Target the first fishsteak, then double click the Ankh. Then Use Taste ID and target the next fishsteak, and double click the Ankh. Continue this while targetting the next fishsteak in line until you've finished the fourth column. Stop the macro from recording. Your macro will look like this:

Use skill/Cast Spell (Taste ID)
Target (Fishsteak)
Use Object (Ankh)
Use skill/Cast Spell
Target
Use Object etc...

With this macro you will taste each fishsteak and if you get poisoned you will be immediately using the Ankh which will remove the poison from you, and you won't even lose 1 HP. Now place a 2 second pause after each Use Object line so your macro will run smoothly. Your macro will now look like this:

Use Skill/Cast Spell (Taste ID)
Target (Fishsteak)
Use Object (Ankh)
Pause 2000
Use Skill/Cast Spell
Target
Use Object
Pause 2000 etc...

Make a macro for every 4 columns of poisoned fishsteaks you have and then just work through them until you get a gain, then start back with the first one.

Once you're above 72 skill you will rarely get poisoned and then you can remove the use object line.

(FAQ created, written and all by WK-PR... Copied and pasted by Quiby/php-bin/shared/images/icons/biggrin.gif)

Feenicks · Feb 1, 2006

Temporary FAQ addendums.

-------------------------------------------

I cant eat! What's the deal?
see this thread here:
Hunger Nerf [it's up to us, now]

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Does Cooking Effect Skillgain, the RNG, hit chance, etc etc...?

From Wilki:

<blockquote><hr>

Wilki_EA
UO Online Community Rep

Re: Does food still affect hit chance, fizzles, etc ? [Re: Morrolan]
12/19/05 03:17 PM

It certainly doesn't now, and as far as I know, it never has. It also doesn't change the RNG at all. Neither does dying.

After I looked at the code, and thought back to how I committed suicide everytime my pack was full while working tinkering, and all the time I spent recalling around and running back and forth across the server lines in Buc's Den... let's just say you don't need to do any of those things.

[/ QUOTE ]

The above was the response to this question:

<blockquote><hr>

Morrolan

Does food still affect hit chance, fizzles, etc ?
12/19/05 12:48 PM

I remember back in the day, if you were full you had a better chance of hitting, casting, etc. Is that still around at all?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an issue often discussed.

Despite the above clarification many people still debate this.

But the only proven effect that eating has* is to restore a small amount of stamina which varies depending on how filling the food is.

It is my personal opinion that any percieved difference one has in gaining skills, hitting, missing and casting spells has more to do with the soon to be fixed streakyness of the RNG.
The very act of doing something else (ie eating) may just be the time delay needed to break out of that streak. For despite the "facts" if i fizzle a half dozen or so gates i'll STILL 'create food' and eat the results then try again often to success...

*note: the exception of course is magical/enchanted foods that have specific effects.

The above metioned thread has had more input from wilki:

<blockquote><hr>

Wilki_EA
UO Online Community Rep

Re: Does food still affect hit chance, fizzles, etc ? [Re: Connor_Graham]
12/20/05 06:06 AM

<blockquote><hr>

It's also been said that it's coincidence that after you eat, the bad streak you were on goes away.

[/ QUOTE ]

Could that perhaps be explained this way.

Sir Joe is furiously crafting candlebras looking for a gain. He crafts 300 of them, and nothing. "Well, darnit, that Wilki guy said it doesn't matter, but I'm going to try eating just in case!"

*munch* *munch*

55 candlebras later... 0.1 gain!

Now, Sir Joe thinks Wilki is full of it, and that hunger does indeed make a difference.

But whoaaah there pilgrim. Could it be that Sir Joe was having a particularly bad run of luck that was due to end soon, butinstead of his eating causing the gain, rather it was the run of bad luck that caused him to eat? In other words, people don't start trying these odd behaviors until they've ran into a long run of no gains, so though they would have gained anyhow, the perception is that eating actually does cause gains to occur?

That's my theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

AND

<blockquote><hr>

Wilki_EA
UO Online Community Rep

Re: Does food still affect hit chance, fizzles, etc ? [Re: Connor_Graham]
12/20/05 07:54 AM

<blockquote><hr>

It's also been said that it's coincidence that after you eat, the bad streak you were on goes away.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't say it was coincidence, rather it is factor of probability and perception.

If you're getting gains at a rate that you expect, you're not likely to be thinking about eating, changing subservers, dying, etc. It's only after you've ran into a longer than normal streak of bad luck that you start thinking that something is wrong, and you begin to try various things to increase your chance to gain.

But if you have a set probability that something will occur with each use (say, 1 in 1000 that you'll gain when you make a chair), if you've already gone far enough past your average length of time between gains so that you start to think that something is wrong, you're "due" to see a gain. That doesn't mean that each time you craft for that 1 in a 1000 gain you have an ever greater chance of getting it for each individual crafting attempt, as each one is always 1 in 1000. Collectively, however, the chance that you'll get that 1 in 1000 result increases as you accumulate more crafting attempts.

So, in a nutshell, people don't tend to think about this sort of thing unless they're having a particularly bad run of luck, and by that time, they're "due" for a gain.

[/ QUOTE ]

and it USED to effect Hit Point Regen:

<blockquote><hr>

JIB
UO Engineer

Re: Does food still affect hit chance, fizzles, etc ? [Re: Wilki_EA]
12/21/05 01:09 PM

<blockquote><hr>

It certainly doesn't now, and as far as I know, it never has. It also doesn't change the RNG at all. Neither does dying.

[/ QUOTE ]

Food just gives you a small stanima change now. It used to affect hp regeneration rates but that was removed in AoS I believe. So sayeth the code.

[/ QUOTE ]

Five on friday gives more info on food effects:
<blockquote><hr>

Five on Friday February 23, 2007

"Does food actually do any good anymore? "
This is sort of a perennial question - I ran it by various devs and got various degrees of eye-rolling, according to their personalities

The short version is that your hunger level has no effect on any other calculation. The only thing your hunger level determines is if you can eat more food or not. Now, magic food is a different story, of course, and will have various interesting magical effects according to its nature, but regular, non-magical food has no effect on skill gain, accuracy, crafting success, or anything else.

--

[/ QUOTE ]

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The faq is outdated and needs serious updating, it's on a "to do" list.
Hopefully one day sooner rather than later.

Guest · Jul 29, 2006

There are 2 ways to obtain flour to use in cooking:

1.) Buy flour sacks or bowls of flour from NPC baker
2.) Make your own sacks of flour by:

<ul> [*]Using wheat, and a cooking tool
To do this, you will need wheat, obtained from a farmer's field (eg. those outside Britain & Skara Brae). Place the wheat, and a cooking tool in your pack, and while standing next to a flour mill (either one placed as a house add on deed made by a player carpenter or one in public NPC bakery), double click the cooking tool, and use the Ingredients --> sack of flour option in the menu.

This method will produce one sack of flour for every sheaf of wheat you have in your pack. All of the flour sacks will be useable to produce items that require flour in the cooking menu.

[*]Grinding wheat interactively with the flour mill
To produce flour by this method, you must have at least 4 sheaves of wheat in your pack. Stand next to a flour mill. Double click the wheat in your pack, and then click on the "hopper" of the mill to add it. It loads 2 sheaves at a time. As soon as you begin loading the wheat the graphic for the mill changes to this:

It requires 2 loadings (i.e. a total of 4 sheaves) to make a sack of flour. After you have loaded 4 sheaves of wheat, double click the crank wheel portion of the flour mill. It will spin around a few times, and a sack of flour will drop out of the chute. (If you have not added enough wheat, it will give you a message asking for more).

Here is the catch: the direct use of the mill in this manner also gives a chance of making a "mutant" flour sack. Mutant flour sacks will stack, unlike normal ones, and will NOT be useable to produce items that require flour in the cooking menu. These mutant flour sacks are only good for deco or building flour forts.[/list]

You cannot tell the difference between the 2 types of flour sack until you "open" them, by double clicking on the sacks.

A normal flour sack looks like this (opening faces south). Note: as far as I know ALL sacks of flour purchased from NPC bakers face south when opened:

A "mutant" flour sack, which can result from using the flour mill interactively, looks like this when opened (opening faces east):

So, the main thing to remember, if you have a "closed" sack of flour in your pack, and all the other listed ingredients for a particular cooking product, yet keep getting messages that you do not have the ingredients to make it - check your flour...you just may be holding a mutant.

-Skylark

P.S. this information was tested on the Siege Perilous shard. I have not personally tested it on a shard with a standard ruleset, but I believe the results will be the same, based on feedback

Guest · Apr 28, 2008

Since the original post can't be edited anymore, tacking on this note: "mutant flour sack" issue is slated for fix in Publish 52 (arriving on a Test Center near you the week of April 28, 2008).

-Skylark

Cooking & Taste ID FAQ

Crashster

Guest

Quiby

Guest

Feenicks

Seasoned Veteran

Guest

Guest

Guest

Guest