Cooking is one of the core life skill activity in Black Desert Online. You need food to make your workers do their jobs, get useful buffs, and to make money. Here is a list of foods that are frequently used in Black Desert Online and are relatively easy to craft.

■ Worker Stamina Food

Beer

Grain x5
Mineral Water x6
Leavening Agent x2
Sugar x1

Beer is an easy worker stamina food to make that recovers 2 stamina points, and also a good food to make when you have just started Cooking. The materials are easy to get, and cooking Beer only requires Beginner 1 Cooking level. You can use any type of grain among Wheat, Potato, Sweet Potato, Corn, and Barley. All other ingredients are available from NPC vendors.

Here are the list of nodes that produce grains:
  -  Wheat: Costa Farm, Moretti Plantation, and Northern Wheat Plantation
  -  Potato: Bartali Farm, Finto Farm, and Loggia Farm
  -  Sweet Potato: Shuri Farm
  -  Corn: Toscani Farm
  -  Barley: Northern Wheat Plantation

Grilled Bird Meat

Chicken Meat x2
Deep Frying Oil x6
Salt x1
Cooking Wine x2

Grilled Bird Meat is also a good worker stamina food. Grilled Bird Meat recovers 3 worker stamina, which is one more point than Beer does. You only need to have Beginner 1 or above Cooking Level to craft Grilled Bird Meat, and all the ingredients except for Chicken Meat are available from NPC vendors. Chicken Meat can be produced in Bartali Farm and Finto Farm nodes.

■ Combat EXP Food

Milk Tea 

Tea with Fine Scent x2
Milk x3
Cooking Honey x3
Wheat Flour x2

Milk Tea is a food that gives you 8% combat EXP for 90 minutes. Milk Tea is relatively easier to make compared to other EXP food, and requires Skilled 1 or above Cooking Level. As there are multiple steps in crafting Milk Tea, here is a step by step guide on how to get the materials.

Making Tea with Fine Scent

Tea with Fine Scent is a material for Milk Tea which you have to craft via Cooking. It requires 4 Flowers (Rose, Sunflower, or Tulip), 4 Fruits (Apple, Banana, Grape, Cherry, Banana, Pear, or Pineapple), 7 Mineral Water, and 3 Cooking Honey. Mineral Water can be purchased from NPC vendors, and Cooking Honey can be produced in Alejandro Farm node.

Flowers can either be gathered manually or planted in a Garden. If you want to gather flowers, you can go to the area marked in the screenshot below. (Near Northern Wheat Plantation, northeast of Calpheon)

The only flower you can plant in a Garden is Sunflower. When planting Sunflower for the first time, purchasing Special Sunflower Seeds from the Marketplace is recommended, as you can produce more seeds by breeding them.

Fruits can be gathered manually or planted in a Garden as well, but gathering is extremely inefficient. Grape and Strawberry are recommended fruits, as Grapes can be collected from a node (Casta Farm, which is located near Olvia). Both Grape and Strawberry can be planted in a Garden. Planting is more recommended, as Casta Farm is far away and the amount might not be enough.

Alternately, you can purchase Fruits from Milano Belucci in Calpheon. She will sell any type of Fruit with 700 to 1000 silver. The cheapest one is Apple, which costs 700 silver.

Gathering Milk

Milk can be collected by placing haystacks in a garden, turning in cooking byproducts, or through cow milking mini game. You can place a maximum of 2 haystacks in a 10*10 garden, and it will take 8 hours to harvest milk. Harvesting the haystacks will grant you a lot of milk along with leather and meat, and an upgraded haystack will give you a larger amount of products. Haystacks can be crafted by drying 50 Weeds.

If you are turning in cooking byproducts, you can exchange 3 Strongly Seasoned Dish with 1 milk. If you want to manually gather milk by playing the mini game, you can find cows at the west end of Olvia town. You can get about 5 to 10 milk per mini game, and the game will consume energy. The mini game is rather simple. You have to hold LMB and RMB alternatively for a brief time to fill the milk bottle up to 100%. If you hold the buttons too short, you can’t get enough amount of milk. If you hold the buttons for too long, the cow will run out of milk and you can’t get any milk.

Cooking Honey

Cooking Honey is available in Alejandro Farm, which is located at north west of Heidel.

Making Wheat Flour

Wheat is available in Costa Farm, Moretti Plantation, and Northern Wheat Plantation nodes. Wheat can be replaced by any types of grain, and Wheat Flour can be obtained by Processing(Grinding) Wheat.

■ Life EXP Food

Sute Tea

Tea with Fine Scent x2
Milk x3
Salt x1
Butter x2

Sute Tea will give you 8% Life EXP. Tea with Fine Scent and Milk are the same ingredients as Milk Tea. Salt can be purchased from NPC vendors, and Butter can be crafted via Processing.

In order to make Butter, you have to make Cream first. Cram can be crafted by Shaking 1 Sugar and 1 Milk together. Then, you can Shake 1 Cream and 1 Salt together to make Butter.

■ Imperial Cooking Box 

Five-Grain Chicken Porridge 

Ground Bird Meat x2
Mineral Water x2
Wheat x3

Five-Grain Chicken Porridge will give 5% Amity for 60 minutes, and is also a material for Five-Grain Chicken Porridge Cooking Box which you can turn in as Imperial Delivery. The materials are Ground Bird Meat, Mineral Water, and Wheat. Ground Bird Meat is obtainable by Grinding any types of Bird Meat. Chicken Meat is the easiest one to get as it can be produced in Bartali Farm and Finto Farm nodes. Wheat is also available from nodes, and Mineral Water can be purchased from NPC Vendors.