Cooking

= Cooking fish = You fish, or you pick up dropped raw fish, cook on a fire - easy, but very boring. Higher level fish require a higher cooking level, but give more experience and greater healing when eaten.

If somebody is standing in the fire you are trying to cook in, then rightclick the spot, then leftclick "use (item) with fire".

= Cooking without fishing = It is possible to cook many good dishes without fishing, and once that choice is made, it becomes tedious to spend time waiting for a bite. Multi-ingredient dishes yield greater experience per item cooked, but probably lower experience per raw ingredient.

At the lowest levels, you can cook meat from giant rats, cows, bears or any other animal that drops meat when killed, Chicken can be used in some recipes that specify "meat", maybe in all of them. Bread can also be made, but this a waste of flour compared to better items that can be made.

Some good non-fish items, with level, are:
 * (10) Redberry pie, equal healing to Mackerel (members only). This is also required for the Knights Sword quest.
 * Redberries are found outside the south city wall of Varrock, near the east mine
 * (20) Meat pie, equal to Pike
 * (25) Stew, equal to Salmon.
 * Since Stew is an excellent staple for a medium level non-fish cook, it deserves description in detail, especially as it is the only good non-fish item that may be cooked on a fire.
 * The required bowls may be crafted using clay mined from the Dwarven Mine, wetted using a bucket (take one, or buy from the general store in the mine) and water from the Monastery fountains, then a trip south and east to the Pottery in the Barbarian Village. You may find Bowls dropped by those crafting them just for experience.
 * Visit the Draynor bank, and draw out the following: Tinderbox, Woodcutting axe, some bowls (leave a few spaces) and the requirements for killing chickens by whichever skill you wish to train.
 * Take the road west, to the farm north of Port Sarim. Fill the bowls with water from the sink, then kill and cook chickens using wood cut from outside the gate. Add the cooked chicken to the the stew by using the bowl of water on the chicken (the other way forces you to right click, or else you will eat the chicken - always use the inedible on the edible!)
 * Collect some more firewood, and then take your load of incomplete stews east to the potato field, the second field east of Draynor. If you have no spare spaces, light the first fire immediately, then begin pulling potatoes and adding to the stew (same way as the chicken). Cook the stews as you prepare them, until the fire goes out, then prepare the remainder and then cook. Empty the burnt ones, then go back to Draynor, bank the completed stews, and draw some more bowls
 * (30/32) Apple pie, equal to Tuna
 * While the cooking level is 30, the only place for the freeplay cook to get cooking apples is inside the Cooks Guild, in fact, the only thing that needs to be brought in is grain to mill into flour, since a pot for the flour and a jug for water is also available. It may be better not to rely on the slow-spawning pie dish, as there can be serious competition for it. You can mill more than one load of grain and use only one pot to repeatedly collect and make into dough
 * (35) Pizza and Wine - and while the Pizza requires purchased ingredients, it is the base of another series of dishes that finishes with the finest freeplay dish, the Anchovy Pizza. Wine may be made entirely from free ingredients in the Cooks Guild, but competition for them is high, and this very easy dish gives less experience than Apple pie
 * (40) Cake, equal to Lobster, and "Lobbies" are a much prized food of the wandering adventurer, healing 12 HP
 * The ingredients are again, free to collect elsewhere, but it may be better to take some cake tins away with you if you run out of milk, eggs and flour. The only place for freeplay cooks to get a cake tin is in the guild or to buy one off another player, though at the level required to cook cakes, you can enter the guild if you wear a chef's hat.

If you keep a stock of plain pizza, you can add toppings when you reach the required level, probably best to wait until you are able to add Anchovies to make the best freeplay food, as this will serve you well on the most dangerous of the quests.

There are some higher level dishes, but to extend this further would really demand a complete section on cooking. The Anchovy Pizza, of course, does require Fishing, though only at level 15 - unless you can buy or collect Anchovies from others who are fishing or cooking them.

Some other points to note, are that pies and pizzas are eaten in two bites while cakes are eaten in three. While this means you can take a bite without waste at a much lower level of hits, it also means that if you sustain a high hit, you must munch two or three bites to recover it. For a larger recovery with one bite, the 9 HP stew or the 11 HP wine have a lot going for them, even if your cooking level is significantly higher.

Another point to note, with some prepared dishes, unlike with fish, you will be left with the empty container after eating. If you need the space for something else, then drop it, as you can easily clay-craft some more. Pies leave you with the pie dish, while stews leave you with the bowl. Pizza does not use any contaner, while the cake tin is used only while cooking and may be stored after use.