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Cooking Tutorial with Ariella and Pascalito

From A Wiki in the Desert

Definition of a valid Pair: When we use the word ‘Pair’ in cooking a meal/recipe in this guide it must be a Base and Additive of two different ingredients that have a non-zero Duration when cooked as a Meal.

See end of this guide for a Pair table you can copy and put on your User Page.

See the end of this guide for a table of the Cooking Level costs.

TASK 1 – BECOME A COOK.

Find the cost to buy the Cooking skill ( Skills or run to any School of Worship and click the school) and purchase/learn Cooking Level 1. The School and University of Worship often deal with organic items like animals, food, herbs.

TASK 2 – COOK A MEAL.

Get 1 deben of 1 ingredient and go to the kitchen.

List of Ingredients
ants (dead and queen), barley, cocoa, dates, eggs, fish, fish roe, grilled anything, herbs, honey, juices, malts, meat, milk (camel or coconut), mushrooms, oil from camels or sheep or flax, salt, veggies, wheat.

Click kitchen.

Click Mix -> Add ingredient -> Click Cook. Oops, “You need at least 7 pieces of food in the pot to make a serving.”

Run back to storage and let's rethink this.

INFO 1: You must use at least 7 debens of ingredients to make a meal.

Teppy loves 7. You still have 1 deben of 1 ingredient in the pot. So grab 6 deben more of the same ingredient and click Mix and add those. Click Cook. Give a fancy name for your simple meal. Look in your Main tab to see that “You complete the dish.”

Click kitchen and choose “Enjoy the food.” Look at your Stats under your Skills tab. You will see that your stats were not changed by this meal and the message in Main states, “You eat a bit, but the food doesn’t really do anything for you.” What happened? Whenever you put in 7 deben or more of only one type of ingredient (and no other ingredients), for example 7 dates as the only ingredient, the result will be 0 in all stats for that dish. So what to try next and why?

INFO 2: You need a Base type of ingredient and an Additive type of ingredient which is commonly called a Pair. Technically you can use 1 Base ingredient per level of cooking (explained later).


INFO 3: Every multiple of 7 debens of ingredients gives one serving.

Why cook in multiples of 7 debens? What happens if you put in 15 debens of Base and 4 debens of Additive? You get two servings from this since 14 debens is the highest multiple of 7 that is less than 19. You waste 5 debens of ingredients.

INFO 4: We commonly break down the pairs of 7 debens into a quantity of 6 deben Base ingredient and 1 deben Additive ingredient . The Base of the pair will be the ingredient with the highest quantity.

Why 6 and 1? Because we want to use the highest amount of the cheap ingredient and the least amount of the rarer ingredient. But you can use any combo that adds up to 7 such as 5 deben Base and 2 deben Additive or 4 deben Base and 3 deben Additive.

TASK 3 – COOK A MEAL TO CHANGE YOUR STATS.

Using any pair of ingredients with any combination of quantities that add to 7, cook another meal. If you use one rare ingredient then go with the 6:1 ratio to use the least of the rare ingredient. Try several different pairs of differing quantities and observe the stat changes until you find a meal pair that changes at least one stat.

  1. Open the Main tab.
  2. Eat the new meal and type a marker in Main.
  3. Look at your Skills tab and note the change in stats.
  4. If you get a change in stats or you have used a pair of ingredients the message in Main will say, “You eat some <name you gave your meal>”.
  5. When the stat change disappears then note how much time elapsed so you know how long this meal ‘s effects last.
  6. Repeat until you find desirable changes as shown below….
INFO 5: A decent successful pair for Level 1 Cooking can give a meal with a duration of 15–20 minutes and one or more stat changes where a +3 or +4 stat change is very good.

If your recipe gives useful changes as outlined in the Data above, then congrats! Go into your Info and enter “Cooking Title: Galley Cook”. Do you post your recipe on the wiki or keep it to yourself? Decide for yourself with knowledge below.

INFO 6: The more an ingredient is eaten (not just cooked) the less the potency to duration and stats it has. Conversely, a relationally rarer eaten ingredient's influence on stats and duration will increase as other more common ingredients are consumed in greater quantity .

Now that you found a useful recipe, click the kitchen and choose “Show the recipe” and write it down.

TASK 4 – FLIP FLOP YOUR PAIR.

Whatever quantities you used for your pair of ingredients that equaled a multiple of 7, now flip flop the quantities of the two ingredients and record what happens. You just switched the Base and Additive by doing this. Reread INFO 4 above, especially the last sentence.

Example: For TASK 3 your successful meal was 6 Camel Meat and 1 Onion. For TASK 4 use a recipe of 6 Onion and 1 Camel Meat. The Base in the first recipe is Camel Meat and the Base in the second recipe is Onion.

TASK 5 – MULTIPLY YOUR SUCCESS.

Take the successful recipe from Task 3 and increase the servings. Remember INFO 3 from above.

Example: If your good recipe was 6 Camel Meat and 1 Onion you would have 1 serving. You now want 5 servings so your best buds can eat too. Modified recipe would be (6 x 5)=30 Camel Meat and (1 x 5)=5 Onion.

INFO 7: Proportionally increasing the quantities of ingredients to get more servings will give the same stat boosts and duration of the original smaller serving recipe.

Keep in mind INFO 6! Your stat boost/s and duration will eventually decrease or increase.

TASK 6 – FORGET THE STATS, GO FOR DURATION!!

Go for it! Start testing random pairs and record the high duration recipes in one group, the useful stat boost+duration recipes in one group and the general crap recipes in one group. But wait, what is a decent duration for Cooking Level 1? Over 15 minutes is worth recording. For Cooking Level 2 expect around 30–40 minutes for good duration. But why am I doing this crummy time waster?

INFO 8: In general, shoot for around an additional 15 minutes of duration for each cooking level.

You are getting ready to make Masterpieces!! Try to find 4 or more high duration pairs. Confer with friends.

TASK 7 – ACQUIRE COOKING LEVEL 2

Ditto Task 1.

TASK 8 – TWO STAR COOK.

By now you have bought the skill Foraging (School of Worship cost 300 Thorns and 30 Cactus Sap and be Level 2) so you have a bit of herbs among your loot. Hint: Forage, forage, forage. Herbs give you a potential greater source for useful recipes.

Go back and reread the second sentence in INFO 2. You might have missed the significance. With Cooking Level 2 you can now make recipes with two pairs. This means better stats and higher duration (refer to INFO 8)!

Try making 10 or 20 recipes with two pairs that you have recorded information on previously and that have similar useful stat boosts. You will see that the stat boosts of each pair are a little less than simple addition.

Example: Pair 1 gives +2 Strength, +1 Dex and +2 Speed in a one pair meal. Pair 2 gives +1 Strength and +1 Speed in a one pair meal. When Pair 1 and Pair 2 are combined in a two pair meal, the outcome might be +2 Strength and +3 Speed. As you see, Strength shows that stats do not stack by simple addition or Strength would also have been +3.

INFO 9: The more pairs you use, the total stack of the stat boosts from the pairs will diminish as opposed to simple addition.

Continue testing single pairs by tossing in an herb additive in new pairs. Notice the results in higher stat boosts and duration compared to just the single pairs. Remember to record recipes in your three groups: 1) Useful stat boosts with decent duration. 2) High duration (trust us) 3) Seemingly useless recipes.

Oops, did you get weird results on some of your two recipe tries compared to the original separate pairs? You probably used two pairs in one recipe where the Base ingredient quantities differed.

INFO 10: When using multiple pairs you must preserve different Bases by keeping the quantity of the differing Base ingredients identical, otherwise a lower quantity Base ingredient compared to a higher quantity Base ingredient will become an Additive ingredient.

Example: One pair recipe of 6 Camel Meat Base and 1 Onion Additive is combined with one pair of 4 Honey Base and 3 Common Basil. Go back and reread INFO 4 especially the second sentence. Since 6 is greater than 4, the Camel Meat is the only base and the Honey became an Additive ingredient. So either use two pairs of 6 Base and 1 Additive or two pairs of 4 Base and 3 Additive. The Bases in pairs must have identical quantities to preserve the ingredients as Bases.

INFO 11: Pairs should be preserved as 1 Base ingredient and 1 Additive ingredient generally speaking or you can get degenerative reactions in duration. You'll learn more about this later.

TASK 9 – KEEP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

Test more pairs and then test more two pair recipes and log results and group the recipes. There is a reason.

TASK 10 – SPICE IT UP.

Herbs can give a kick to a meal in another way! Eat your meal, eat a fresh (unpicked) herb and the stats from both stack up. Check the wiki under Foraging to see if an unpicked herb near you has the affected stats listed. If not, then consume a meal, make sure to record the stats of the meal and then eat your nearby herb. Note which stat/s change and by how much and be the first to enter it on the Foraging page of the wiki!

NOTE: You can also eat a fresh herb without eating a meal. Note the changes to your stats and record those on the wiki under the Foraging page if that data is not there. The herb's effect to stats will last three minutes. So if you do not have a grilled food on you, you may get frozen to the spot if your carry capacity is over the limit from a reduction in Strength and/or Dexterity.

INFO 12: Herbs eaten fresh AFTER eating a meal add the stats of the herb to the stats of the meal. Meal duration is unaffected. (Check the foraging page to see if anyone has listed the stats affected for a particular herb).

Talking about herbs – fair warning at this point for buying the dreaded Cooking Level 5 because of the rare herbs. GET OUT THERE AND FORAGE, FORAGE, FORAGE!! BUY FORAGING MEMORY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (Foraging Level 2 – Sworship for 7 each of Ashoka, Fumitory, Ilex, Orange Sweetgrass, Pulmonaria Opal, Sweetsop, Yellow Tristeria at Level 9 or above).

TASK 11 – ENDURANCE HIKE!

You should have enough pairs from experimenting to find your highest endurance pairs. Go make that meal, then scout near you for fresh herbs, check the wiki page to see if the herb in question increases Endurance. Keep scouting fresh herbs until you find one that does. Now you're ready to announce that you want to organize a dig (since that uses Endurance). Or eat the End meal plus the fresh herb and go use your loom faster or work a quarry. But be careful to check that your meal and fresh herb does not put your Dex or Strength below 0 and freeze you in your tracks!

INFO 13: Carry 1 cheap grilled food in case you goof and get frozen if you forget and eat an herb that decreases your Dex or Strength too much for the amount of Items you are carrying. Consuming a grilled item will change your stats to that of the grilled food and unfreeze you.

CONTINUE TESTING PAIRS TO FIND MORE HIGH DURATION RECIPES AND BETTER STATS!

Grilled Food Stat Changed by +2
Cabbage Speed
Carrot Perception
Garlic Focus
Leeks Cannot grill
Onion Endurance
Pepper Dexterity +1 and Strength +1

TASK 12 – BUY COOKING LEVEL 3.

Ditto Task 1.

Build several more kitchens within reachable distance. A dozen more is not too many. Also, as you build more machines think about the need for a stat boost to use the machine and if so, build a kitchen AND a chest nearby. Often the target stat/s recipes with the highest boost also ruin carry and freeze you. No problem if you have the kitchen within reach of your machine and a chest to either dump Items or hold needed Items to grab for use on the machine.

Example: Toxin Kitchen needs high Constitution to speed up use. Build a kitchen nearby and have a chest or warehouse within reach to hold items to use in the Toxin Kitchen.

Build a chest within reaching distance of your kitchens and put some grilled food in it for emergency freezes and the deliberate freezes from consuming your Masterpiece meals. Build a small box within reach, put in grilled food and put it Public for your friends who eat your Masterpieces and get frozen.

TASK 13 – CREATE A MASTERPIECE (MP in Egyptian slang).

I promised you would find out why high duration meals (even with crummy stat changes) were so important. With Cooking Level 3 you can now use three pairs in your cooking. GRAB A GRILLED FOOD IN CASE THIS MEAL FREEZES YOU! Or be near a chest to dump items out and unfreeze. Or have another cheap meal in a second reachable kitchen to wash away the freezing stats.

If you did as advised in TASK 13 and have several kitchens you can now try to make Masterpieces! Decide if you want to take a chance and use up more ingredients to get more servings with each of your MP tries so your friends can eat them too.

Try combinations of your highest Duration pairs. At first remember to use 6 of the Base ingredient plus 1 of the Additive Ingredient ratio in all 3 Pairs of each recipe. Expect with 45 minute and higher Duration meals to take as many as 50 recipes to get your MP. At Cooking Level 4 it becomes eaiser to get an MP because with 4 Pairs you increase the Duration possible.

INFO 14: The label “Masterpiece” is awarded for certain recipes. After clicking “Cook” on the kitchen there is a chance that a popup will bestow this title on your meal. The chance to get an MP increases with high duration meals. We told you to keep testing for high duration pairs!
INFO 15: Eating an MP increases your Gastronomy by 1 point (look under your Skills tab) and in Main for confirmation. Sometimes eating an MP that is too similar to an MP you previously consumed negates getting a point (see Main when after you eat). Eating a second or more servings of the same MP will never increase your Gastronomy again.
INFO 16: An MP is very rarely made with two Pair recipes so use at least three Pairs or more. Remember that the higher the duration of the recipe, the greater the chance the recipe will be an MP. Cooking Level 3 is usually the earliest you can make an MP.

Experience seems to say that using more unusual ingredients gives more chance of making an MP.

Congrats when you get your first MP!! Click yourself then Info and change your Cooking title to: COOKING: MASTERPIECE CHEF.

TASK 14 – PLAYING WITH RATIOS IN PAIRS.

In Task 13 we stuck to using a 6:1 ratio (Base:Additive) with our pairs. We will explain other ratios and you will observe what happens.

INFO 17: The higher the ratio, the lower the duration in recipe outcomes. Example: Using 6 Camel Meat: 1 Onion the ratio is 6 divided by 1 = 6.00. Compare with 5 Camel Meat: 2 Onion where the ratio is 2.50. And one last comparison with 4 Camel Meat: 3 Onion where the ratio will be 1.33. The 4:3 ratio or 1.33 should make the highest duration recipe and have the highest chance for producing an MP.

Choose any three Pairs of Base:Additive ingredients and then try three test recipes using those same 3 pairs but with the three sets of ratios.

Example:
Recipe 1 -- 6 Camel Meat: 1 Onion plus 6 Mutton: 1 Leek plus 6 Carrots: 1 Toad Skin Shroom
Recipe 2 -- 5 Camel Meat: 2 Onion plus 5 Mutton: 2 Leek plus 5 Carrots: 2 Toad Skin Shroom
Recipe 3 -- 4 Camel Meat: 3 Onion plus 4 Mutton: 3 Leek plus 4 Carrots: 3 Toad Skin Shroom

INFO 18: DO NOT USE THE SAME INGREDIENT IN MORE THAN ONE PAIR IN THE SAME RECIPE (for example do not use Onions in two different pairs) or results will be unpredictable. DO NOT USE THE SAME INGREDIENT FOR BOTH THE BASE AND ADDITIVE WITHIN ONE PAIR. All stats will be 0 and duration will be “Less than one minute.” The cookpot will not know which of the identical ingredient is the Base or the Additive in either case.
INFO 19: DO NOT USE THE SAME AMOUNT OF INGREDIENTS WITHIN A PAIR (refer to INFO 4 and the consequences of Task 4) or both ingredients will be BASES. By using ingredient quantities in pairs that add up to 7 you avoid this also. Example: Recipe is 4 Camel Meat: 4 Onion plus 4 Mutton: 3 Carrot. You have three Bases which are Camel Meat, Onion and Mutton and only one Additive which is the Carrot.

Write down the results and notice what happens to the duration of each three recipes.

Intuition seems to say that changing the ratios in pairs gives more chance of an MP.

TASK 15 – BUMP UP THE GASTRONOMY!

INFO 20: What good is Gastronomy? Gastronomy 7 will allow you to see the “Critically evaluate a dish” option on the kitchen. You can finally see the stat changes and duration without even eating the meal!

GASTRONOMY 7 GIVES YOU ONE PERMANENT PERCEPTION POINT!! Perception is good for dowsing, prospecting, harvesting more wood from each tree. At Gastronomy 49 you get a second permanent Perception point.

Continue doing what you were doing on Task 13 until you have 6 more MPs so you can make your Gastronomy Level 7. Check to see that your Perception now has 1 permanent point! Go into your Info and add COOKING: GASTRONOMICAL EXPERT.

TASK 16 – DISTANCE AFFECTS DURATION.

Duration is affected in three ways. 1) Reread INFO 6 about potency. Higher potency means higher duration and potency is degraded by eating of meals with the target ingredient. 2) The higher the ratio, the lower the duration (see INFO 16). 3) How strongly the two ingredients in a Pair react.

It is hard to control potency because we cannot control what other players eat. We can control the ratio so that is a good way to control duration. What does the third affect mean?

MATH ALERT!! Don't run off yet...

We will explain what #3 means. We need a way to represent the strength of a reaction between two ingredients of a Pair. Think of each of the two ingredients as magnets, each ingredient has two poles. We also need a representation of distance between the two magnets/ingredients.

INFO 21: The farther the ‘distance’ on the graph between the two ingredients of a Pair, the lower the stat boost and duration of the Pair.

The representation of ‘distance’ are points on an X,Y graph where each ingredient is given a coordinate. At the beginning of the tale, a list of useful pairs is put on the wiki. Eventually, once we have Gastronomy 7 and can quickly see results of pair testing, an X,Y graph can be used to visually show distances between ingredients. The ‘nearer’ the two ingredients of a pair are, the more strongly the magnets/ingredients will attract them to each other and the higher the duration that pair will produce.

You have your personal list of useful pairs. If enough ingredients have been placed on the graph, you can now find both ingredient points of a pair and see how near they are to each other. You can compare different pairs to find the pair closest to each other. Try a few recipes by looking at the graph and see if this is true from your observations. You now have another tool to help make more Masterpieces!

TASK 17 – GATHER THE SHROOMS FOR LEVEL 4.

Hopefully, you have been picking mushrooms (shrooms in Egyptian slang) as you find them. Go buy Cooking Level 4 and have at some more MP tries with 4 pairs of ingredients! It gets easier and easier to make those MPs. Drudgery in Egypt gets a bit easier. Don't forget to whip up carry recipes (raised Strength and Dexterity) and speed recipes (Dexterity mainly) for running to find herbs and mushies.

If you happen to hit Gastronomy 49 then huge Congrats to you! Add this to your Cooking titles in your Info to Sous Chef Extraordinaire! Enjoy the additional wood gathered with that second Perception point. Perception also makes quarrying and dowsing easier.

TASK 18 – FROM KITCHEN TO TEST LAB.

How are the ingredient points on the X,Y graph figured?

You must have at least Gastronomy 7 so you can use the option “Critically evaluate this dish.” for the actions below.

  1. Select and have on hand at least 10 deben of an ingredient that is not on the graph or the Ingredient Duration List on the wiki.
  2. Find three Pairs that have your selected ingredient AS THE ADDITIVE. You might have them in your personal list, a list of Pairs on the wiki or have to make tests until you find valid Pairs with this ingredient.
  3. Do the testing below as quickly as possible so the results do not change because other players are eating meals. Every ingredient eaten in a meal slightly changes the potency of all ingredients.
  4. DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOUR THREE PAIRS HAVE THE TARGET INGREDIENT AS THE ADDITIVE AND THAT THE PAIRS HAD A NON-ZERO DURATION AS DEFINED AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS GUIDE!!
  5. Use the 6:1 ratio on each of your three Pairs for the first set of standard testing and record the three Durations to the second .
  6. Use the 13:1 ratio on each of your same three Pairs for the second set of standard testing and record the three Durations again to the second.

Ask a manager of the Ingredient Duration List if you may put your data on it. It is VERY important to do detailed work at this point and list your 6 durations instead of putting the ingredient point on the X,Y graph yourself. If your data is found to be incorrect and you had put your ingredient point on the graph, other players may have tried including that ingredient and gotten ticked off that it gave bad results in their meal.

Add the title INGREDIENT RESEARCHER in your Info with your other Cooking titles if your data is successfully proven!

TASK 19 – BREAKING THE PAIR RULE FOR TOP STATS

When you want to get a specific stat boost you have to give up some duration for top stat boosts.

  1. Choose two or three Pairs that share the same Base and boost the same target stat/s. Since the Base is the same in these Pairs it should now be thought of as one Base that has two or three Additives, in other words, one Pair.
  2. Find the number of Pairs as your Cooking Level minus one (since you have one Pair from the above step) that boost the targeted stat/s.
  3. Cook.
INFO 22: When grouping two or more Pairs that share the same Base (usually done to boost the same target stat/s) these multiple Pairs become one Pair with extra Additives. This gives the largest boost to the targeted stat/s but in return, duration barely increases.

Around this time you should be working on buying Cooking Levels 5 – 7.

TASK 20 – IRON CHEF

Make 7 Masterpieces in your kitchens, invite your friends over or use this set of meals in trade for materials you need or more ingredients.

If you successfully complete Task 19 then CONGRATULATIONS! You are now an Iron Chef!! List this title proudly along with all the rest in your Info under the Cooking: listing.


Personal Pair Table - Copy for your own use

Base Additive Strength Dexterity Endurance Speed Constitution Focus Perception Duration in Seconds


Bought at School of Worship

Cooking Skill 1: 100 each of cabbage, carrots, garlic, leeks, onions and be Level 1.
Cooking Skill 2: 20 each of Common Sage, Thyme and Common Rosemary and be Level 4.
Cooking Skill 3: 49 Salt and Level 7 and Desiccation 1 (1 Huge Ruby and 10 Salt Water-SWorship or 1 Huge Topaz and 5 Salt-SArt or 1 Huge Quartz and 20 Sulphurous Water-SThought).
Cooking Skill 4: 7 each of Camel's Mane, Cobra Hood, Dead Tongue, Iron Knot, Peasant's Foot, Toad Skin, Slave's Bread Mushrooms and be Level 11.
Cooking Skill 5: 7 each of Chukkah, Crimson Lettuce, Crumpled Leaf Basil, Dwarf Wild Lettuce, Jaivanti, Royal Rosemary, Wild Garlic herbs and be Level 16.
Cooking Skill 6: 100 each of Peppers, Eggplant, Cucumbers, Coconut Meat and be Level 22.
Cooking Skill 7: 100 each of Burnt Barley, Burnt Malt, Burnt Wheat and be Level 29. (Will need to have Malting Tray and Grain Oven built to cook those)