Recognize the cooking setup
The Cooking Pot and roasting rack are useful camp objects to identify before an expedition. The image shows a labeled Cooking Pot beside the fire and other physical camp equipment.
Plan the meal and the trip together: prepare food, collect it, then decide what to carry and what to leave at camp. The inventory guide handles that carrying decision; it is separate from how long food stays fresh.
Pick the right station and supply task
- Roasting over a Bonfire: build a Rotisserie with 2 Sticks and 2 Wood Planks, then watch and remove the food before it burns.
- Broths and soups: the Cooking Pot is the finished station; its construction ingredient is an Iron Pot plus 3 Iron Rods.
- Carcass preparation: use the Cooking Table for the v1013 bat and scorpion recipes. Its construction cost is 2 Wood Planks and 1 Leather.
- Rats: capture and hand-process them into Raw Meat plus Animal Hide; this is not a Cooking Table requirement.
- Keeping food for later: 3 Vines make a Food Basket, which keeps food fresh for at least an hour in v1013.
Do not leave the rotisserie unattended
- Prepare the food at the available roasting setup.
- Stay nearby and watch for it to be ready.
- Collect the cooked food before leaving to explore.
In v1013, leaving food on the rotisserie too long can burn it. Collect it when ready rather than leaving the meal warming indefinitely.
Use Food Baskets for food you keep at camp
In v1013, food spoils one item at a time, usually around 20 minutes. Food Baskets keep it fresh for at least an hour.
Use a basket for meals you are preparing for a later trip. Do not assume an ordinary chest provides the same food-preservation benefit.
Some cooking ingredients also spoil, while herbs and some dry ingredients do not. Sort perishables separately when planning the camp supply.
Harvest bats and scorpions before planning the meal
The v1013 update changed dead bats and scorpions: they can be harvested and no longer simply drop food. Bat Carcass and Scorpion Carcass were added to Cooking Table recipes.
For these ingredients, the useful sequence is kill, harvest, then use the Cooking Table recipe. Do not treat an unprocessed carcass as a ready meal, or follow an older drop-food instruction without accounting for this change.
Choose the next preparation task
If you are still at the opening gate, use the first-door guide. If your problem is finding the right station or reading a recipe's inputs, continue to camp crafting.
The food changes are documented in the official demo v1013 announcement.