PEAK: How to cook food

If you're trekking up the mountain in PEAK, learning how to cook food might not seem a top priority, but it can save your run. Between venomous berries, wild terrain, and the occasional exploding bush, eating smart is half the battle. Cooking not only boosts your stamina recovery, but it's often the difference between scraping by and climbing strong.

On that note, here is a guide on how to cook food in the game.

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A guide to cook food in PEAK

Press E to cook food in the game (Image via Aggro Crab, Landfall)

To cook food in PEAK is super simple — if you’ve got fire, you’ve got a kitchen. Any open flame works, whether it's a full-on campfire at a rest spot or even the burning wreckage from the Bing Bong plane crash right at the beginning of the game. Hold a food item like the Marshmallow in the image and cook it. Cooked marshmallows fill hunger even more than most foods, making them one of the most effective snacks you can carry.

You’ll spot campfires as you climb, but don’t wait for the perfect setup. If there’s fire nearby, you can cook on the spot.

Early game cooking: Coconuts and more food items along the way

Grabbing the coconut (Image via Aggro Crab, Landfall)

Right at the start, coconuts are everywhere, especially on the beach. These are great for first-time climbers. Most of them break in half when they hit the ground, but if they don’t, chuck one into the air and let gravity do the work.

Cooked coconut halves give you more stamina than raw ones, so they’re a solid way to prep before you even leave the shore. Store them in your backpack and you’ll thank yourself later when your stamina is scraping the bottom of the bar mid-climb.

You’ll also find other forageable food around the island — like mushrooms, berries, and meat. Cooking these can massively increase their stamina restoration, especially helpful when climbing something brutal. Just be careful: not everything is safe even when cooked. Crispberries and some mushrooms, for example, are still poisonous after cooking.

Some food doesn’t need cooking at all. Granola bars and energy drinks come ready to use and offer solid stamina boosts. Energy drinks in particular also give you a speed burst — but be warned, they’re followed by sleepiness. That same side effect shows up after using the Big Lollipop, which gives you temporary infinite stamina for a short burst. Although amazing in a pinch, it becomes a problem once the sugar crash kicks in.

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Why cooking matters

Aside from boosting stamina, cooking helps you stretch limited resources and stay ready for whatever PEAK throws at you next. If you’re soloing or playing with friends, being the one with cooked food in your bag can make you the MVP on longer climbs.

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That concludes our guide on how to cook food in PEAK.

Check out — PEAK: What is Pandora’s Lunchbox and what are its uses?