Feeding yourself is a major task when just starting out. Obtaining ingredients for the food is difficult, and the food you cook is ineffective. It is highly recommended to obtain food from someone else while you're still trying to get established. However, you should still aim to be able to support yourself quickly.
* The '''effectiveness''' of the food you cook is how much hunger is replenished per bite. It depends on the [[QL]], which is mainly based on your [[hot-food cooking]] skill at the lower levels. Easy dishes get a boost in QL which can partially make up for lower skill.
* To raise your skill, cook small and easy dishes in bulk. The difficulty of a dish can be seen by examining the container. Note that cooking in a [[campfire]] or [[forge]] raises the difficulty; use an [[oven]] when possible.
* [[Soup]] and [[stew]] are good basic recipes, then moving on to [[casserole]]s. [[Meal]]s get no QL boost, so cooking them is generally a waste of resources until you have at least 20 skill.