Cooking uses recipes, same as real life. Makes sense to me.
You can do the Provisioning writs to get recipes, too. You can even do them on multiple characters, leveling Provisioning is still the easiest craft.

Adding: Also when you are in solo delves in zones, make sure to check all backpacks, urns, Dwemer pots, etc. Those can all drop recipes with no stealing

Nestor wrote: »

I am a pretty good cook and I would never try to make anything without a recipe. Even if I know the recipe by heart from making it so many times, I still started with a recipe.

I'm not really looking at comparing to RL - I'm looking at the game system

Besides, Equipment Crafting Has Recipes, they are called Motifs and Traits, you need to learn those to create anything advanced in those craft lines.

Alchemy has Recipes, they are called Reagent Reactions. If you don't know what goes together, your potions will fail.

In fact, the only thing that really does not have recipes in the game is Enchanting. And that is only to the extent that any 3 Runes will make a functioning Glyph. But you still need to know what Runes to put together to create specific glyphs.

Yes we need other ingredients for other crafting professions as well but I am talking about creating ANYTHING, not more advanced items. Yes Alchemy needs water but...

Because:

rec·i·pe
ˈresəˌpē
noun
a set of instructions for preparing a particular dish, including a list of the ingredients required.

All I'm wondering is why every other crafting profession consists of simply finding materials and making items except for Provisioning. It is a game system question, not a question that has anything to do with whether Cooking uses Recipes in Real Life.

And I said in the OP that my characters don't steal as my RP choice.

From experience, you don't need to rely on thievery to get provisioning recipes.
Writs provide them and containers in delves and dungeons too, so I don't see the shortage of recipes ingame.

In comparison my khajiit thief got less recipes by thieving than doing his provisioning writs.

Artemiisia wrote: »

u can still check without looting the dresser and such, I do that all the time, and once a recipe or something else I need shows up, ill try to take it in stealth.

I say loot it all and let the junk folder sort it out hee hee

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

To the OP - I've wondered this myself. Yes, cooking IRL uses recipes, but honestly, who needs a recipe to boil an egg or fry some chicken? Or make a simple omelet? Why can't we at least make basic food without needing a recipe? Or, start with all level 1 recipes known?

It seems really silly to me, especially when you consider that you can walk up to any crafting station, and, as long as you have the materials, you can pop out a cuirass - A CUIRASS. With no blueprint or template needed, I can make a piece of armor? Now that's really stupid. Yes, you still have to find motif books if you want to make something in a different STYLE, but you don't need any kind of blueprint or template to make a piece of armor? Arguably more difficult than making a stew.

The point is, you can craft any armor/weapon from the start of the game without any need to find a motif book - you just need the materials. For provisioning, you can't even make tomato soup without finding a recipe. And, with enchanting and alchemy, you can make anything as long as you have the materials. Yes, in alchemy it is experimental and you can end up with nothing to show for your experimentation, but at least you can do it. You can craft a potion of health without needing the recipe first. The same with enchanting, except in that case, you always get a usable glyph.

I think the OPs point is that it's the only profession that requires you to FIND the recipe FIRST before even being able to attempt the craft.

You make a good point. It might be nice to start with basic foods and have to find recipes for higher level stuff. As I mentioned before, more complexity would be a good thing, so I'm not against the idea of having to find/research blueprints for crafting armor and weapons. Motifs touch on that a little bit, but it might be nice to see the idea expanded a little bit. Perhaps requiring the player to find/purchase blueprints for the different pieces of armor and weapons (ie, one for chest pieces, one for gloves, one for axes, one for swords, etc.) or maybe a book that teaches every piece in each armor category (light, medium, heavy) and each weapon category (axes, swords, maces). Maybe something like:
- Crafting Light Armor (teaches all light armor pieces)
- Crafting Medium Armor (teaches all light armor pieces)
- Crafting Heavy Armor (teaches all heavy armor pieces)
- Crafting Shields (teaches shields)
- Crafting Blades (teaches daggers, swords and greatswords)
- Crafting Axes (teaches axes and battle axes)
- Crafting Maces (teaches maces and mauls)
- Crafting Staves (teaches all staves)
- Crafting Bows (teaches bows; perhaps combine with staves)

Then still require the player to find style motifs to be able to craft particular styles.

It would also be nice if they added specific perks to allow players to specialize in certain things. Say if you choose to specialize in medium armor, any medium armor you craft would have a small boost to armor rating and might degrade significantly slower as well as have higher boosts from traits and perhaps even enchantments. Specializing would obviously lock you out of being able to specialize in other armor types to prevent being a "master of everything". You could specialize in one type of armor and one type of weapon at a time, though (say you do medium armor and blades, which might allow mastery of daggers, swords and greatswords).