Complete the pan-and-stove sequence
- Pick up a pan to start Cooking Basics!.
- Find a stove and a piece of cookable food.
- Attach the food to the pan.
- Attach the pan to the stove and start cooking.
- Watch the food state and remove it when cooked instead of leaving it to burn.
In order · Schematic
Choose what to eat now
| Food type | What to do |
|---|---|
| Fresh steak or drumstick | Cook it; raw meat gives very little food in the Demo. |
| Ready-to-eat food | Use it when a cooking stop is impractical, after checking freshness. |
| Mushroom | Avoid it: NPC Tips reports it causes poison in this Demo. |
| Spoiled meat | Do not use it as a travel ration. |
| Potato | The reported Demo cooking system does not cook it; do not wait for a pan recipe. |
Use the cooked state, not a universal timer
NPC Tips distinguishes raw, partly cooked, cooked and burned food, and reports steak and drumsticks as the Demo cookable foods. The official patch notes say cooking times and freshness were rebalanced, so the current state is more useful than copying a stopwatch value from an older recording.
If an item has no cooking interaction, use a food that the Demo accepts in the pan. Keep ready-to-eat supplies available while you assemble the kitchen.
Where to look for kitchen pieces
The Demo item table lists pans at the starter house, watch towers, factories, wooden cabins and container areas. Stoves are also listed across several stop types. These are possible sources, not a guaranteed pan on a particular shelf.
If no usable kitchen is ready, eat safe ready-to-eat supplies and keep moving between visible stops. Do not let hunger become critical while decorating a kitchen you cannot cook in yet.
Preserve food between stops
Use a fridge for the food you intend to keep. The official survival patch notes say refrigerated food was fixed so it stops spoiling, including after loading and in multiplayer. Food left outside refrigeration still needs a freshness check.
Keep a small immediate ration easy to reach and store the rest together. Recheck food after a load if its state seems wrong, rather than eating a questionable item to see what happens.