In a previous article we talked about how to make a little gold by using fishing and cooking together. One of the reasons this is effective is because of the decent buffs you can get from cooked foods. Food buffs may very well be one of the more overlooked resources in the game for lower level characters. Although a few alchemy potions have some really major buffs, the materials required to make those potions are about 10 times more expensive.

When you get to the higher level content in the game, every little bit counts. Every buff you get from party members helps, and when you stack those buffs it can really increase your survival chances. So why not throw in a food buff? The materials (spices and such) for cooking are super cheap and you can get them in every major city, as well as a good portion of the smaller ones. Almost every town that has an inn has a vendor for trade supplies where you can get spices.

And unlike a lot of trades, the materials needed for each cooking recipe seem to diminish the higher you go. As a matter of fact, of the 32 recipes available after cooking level 300 only 13 require anything other than the meat or fish you’re using.

Most of the cooking recipes will give you a buff to stamina and spirit, but there are others that have more specific buffs to some classes. For the hunter or rogue, you can spend well over 150 gold for enchants to your weapons to add 25-35 agility. Why not keep a stack of grilled mudfish or warp burgers in your pack? Both of these foods add 20 agility and spirit for 30 minutes. That means a single stack will last for 10 hours of play time. Since you can get enough fish or meat for these in about 20 minutes I would say that’s a pretty good trade-off.

Here’s a list of all the foods that have buffs other than the standard +stamina/+spirit formula. The complete list of cooked foods can be found here: http://thottbot.com/?t=Cooking if you want to see all of the things you can make with cooking.

> Sagefish delight - restores 6 mana per 5 seconds for 15 minutes
> Cooked Glossy Mightfish - +10 Stamina for 10 Minutes
> Grilled squid - +10 agility for 10 minutes
> Hot smoked bass - +10 Spirit for 10 minutes
> Nightfin soup - +8 mana P5S for 10 minutes
> Poached Sunscale Salmon - +6 health every 5 seconds for 10 minutes
> Charred Bear Kabobs - +24 Attack Power for 15 Minutes
> Juicy Bear Burger - +14 Damage and Healing from spells for 125 minutes
> Mightfish steak - +10 Stamina for 10 minutes
> Runn Tum tuber surprise - +10 intellect for 10 minutes
> Ravager dog - +40 attack power and +20 spirit for 30 minutes
> Broiled Bloodfin - +8 Resistance to all Schools of magic for 30 minutes
> Dirge’s kickin’ Chimaerok chops - +25 Stamina for 15 minutes
> Blackened sporefish - +20 Stamina and +8 mana every 5 seconds for 30 minutes
> Blackened Basilisk +23 spell damage and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes
> Skullfish Soup - +20 Spell critical strike rating for 30 minutes
> Spicy Hot Talbuk - +20 Hit Rating and Spirit for 30 Minutes
> Grilled Mudfish - +20 agility and +20 Spirit for 30 minutes
> Poached Bluefish - +23 spell damage and +20 spirit for 30 minutes
> Roasted Clefthoof - +20 strength and +20 spirit for 30 minutes
> Warp Burger - +20 agility and spirit for 30 minutes
> Golden Fish Sticks - +44 healing and +20 spirit for 30 minutes
> Crunchy Serpent - +23 spell damage and +20 spirit for 30 minutes
> Spicy Crawdad - +30 stamina and +20 spirit for 30 minutes
> Fisherman’s Feast - +30 stamina and +20 spirit for 30 minutes
> Smoked Desert Dumplings - +20 strength for 15 minutes

Some odd recipe buffs are:
> Dragonbreath Chili - belch flame occasionally
> Savory Deviate Delight - transform into a pirate or ninja
> Stormchops - Zap Enemies occasionally

I always keep a stack or two of buff foods on all my toons. You get the mats everywhere you go, and they are cheap to make. Plus, they give you a little extra oomph while you’re out questing. Train up cooking on your toon if you just play one character, or give one of your alts the cooking skill and send them all the mats you pick up on your adventures. I usually only keep one character with the cooking skill, but that toon keeps everyone else supplied with all we can eat, and even make some coin selling the rest at the AH. Next up - information overload.

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