Cooking & Food Preparation
Survival in the Exiled Lands hinges on your ability to manage hunger and thirst. While raw resources can sustain you in a pinch, proper cooking significantly enhances their benefits, providing better nourishment, longer-lasting buffs, and crucial healing. This section will guide you through the essentials of culinary mastery.
The Basics: Gathering & Early Cooking
Your journey into food preparation begins with the most fundamental ingredients and tools.
- Gathering Raw Meat:
- Source: Early game, the easiest source of raw meat is from small creatures like Hyenas, Gazelles, and Crocodiles. You'll find Hyenas roaming the desert biome, particularly near the starting river. Gazelles are abundant in grassy plains, and Crocodiles lurk in the rivers.
- Tool: Use a Stone Hatchet or a Stone Pick to harvest meat from fallen animals. A hatchet is generally more efficient for meat and hide.
- Storage: Raw meat spoils quickly! Prioritize cooking it or storing it in a preserving bin.
- Crafting a Campfire:
- Requirement: You'll unlock the Campfire recipe early in your journey.
- Materials: Typically requires Wood and Stone. Wood can be harvested from trees with an axe, and stone from rocks with a pick.
- Placement: Place your Campfire on flat ground. It serves as your primary cooking station for basic meals.
- First Meals:
- Cooked Meat: Place Raw Meat and Fuel (Wood, Coal, or Plant Fiber) into the Campfire. Cooked Meat provides more hunger saturation and a small amount of healing compared to its raw counterpart.
- Grilled Fodder: Made from Plant Fiber. While not as nutritious as meat, it's a readily available early-game snack.
Advanced Cooking: The Stove & Specialized Recipes
As you progress, you'll gain access to more sophisticated cooking stations and recipes, offering superior food items.
- The Stove:
- Unlock: The Stove is a significant upgrade from the Campfire, typically unlocked around mid-game.
- Materials: Requires more refined materials than a Campfire, often including Iron Bars and Brick.
- Benefits: The Stove cooks food faster and unlocks a wider array of recipes, many of which provide powerful buffs beyond simple hunger and healing.
- Specialized Ingredients:
- Spices: Essential for many advanced recipes. Can be found by harvesting various plants, especially in the jungle biome, or sometimes dropped by human NPCs.
- Eggs: Gathered from bird nests, often found in trees or on cliffsides.
- Honey: Harvested from beehives, typically found in rocky areas or specific tree types.
- Sulphur: While not a food item itself, Sulphur is crucial for crafting Explosive Jars, which can be used to destroy structures or harvest specific resources. It's found in volcanic regions or caves like the Sulphur Springs.
- Notable Recipes from the Stove:
- Savory Meat: Requires Cooked Meat and Spices. Provides better healing and hunger restoration than plain Cooked Meat.
- Gruel: A staple for thralls, made from Plant Fiber and Seeds. While simple, it's efficient for keeping your workforce fed.
- Exquisite Feasts: Later game recipes, often requiring rare ingredients, offer significant buffs to attributes like Strength, Vitality, or Encumbrance, making them invaluable for combat or resource gathering. Examples include Cooked Fish with spices, or various stews.
Preservation & Storage
Preventing spoilage is key to efficient food management.
- Preserving Bin:
- Crafting: An early-game craftable container.
- Function: Place Ice or Salt inside the Preserving Bin along with your raw or cooked food to significantly extend its spoilage timer. Ice is found in colder biomes or sometimes dropped by certain creatures. Salt can be mined from salt deposits found in various caves or desert regions.
- Refrigeration (Advanced):
- Ice Chest: A more advanced storage unit that offers superior preservation compared to the Preserving Bin. Typically unlocked later and requires more complex materials.
Mastering cooking in Conan Exiles not only keeps your hunger at bay but also provides strategic advantages through buffs and efficient resource management. Experiment with different ingredients and recipes to discover the best culinary solutions for your survival needs.