Cooking

Based on game build 714014 | Last updated: 2026-03-21

Overview

The cooking module provides central utilities for managing cooking recipes and ingredient values across all cooker entities in Don't Starve Together. It handles recipe registration, ingredient tag calculations, and deterministic recipe selection based on ingredient combinations. This module is imported by cooker prefabs and cooking-related systems to determine what food product results from combining specific ingredients.

Usage example

local cooking = require("cooking")

-- Check if a prefab is a valid cooking ingredient
if cooking.IsCookingIngredient("meat") then
    -- Get ingredient values for a list of prefabs
    local ingdata = cooking.GetIngredientValues({"meat", "carrot", "berries"})
    
    -- Find candidate recipes for a cookpot
    local candidates = cooking.GetCandidateRecipes("cookpot", ingdata)
    
    -- Calculate the final recipe that will be produced
    local recipe_name, cooktime = cooking.CalculateRecipe("cookpot", {"meat", "carrot", "berries"})
end

Dependencies & tags

Components used: None (this is a utility module, not an entity component) Tags: None identified (module does not add or check entity tags)

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
recipes	table	{}	Contains all registered recipes organized by cooker type.
ingredients	table	{}	Contains ingredient values and tags for all valid cooking ingredients.
cookbook_recipes	table	{}	Recipes organized by cookbook category for UI display.
recipe_cards	table	{}	Recipe card definitions for cookbook visualization.
official_foods	table	{}	Tracks which foods are official (non-mod) recipes.

Main functions

AddCookerRecipe(cooker, recipe, is_mod_food)

• Description: Registers a new recipe for a specific cooker entity. Called during initialization to populate the recipe database.
• Parameters: cooker (string) - the cooker prefab name (e.g., cookpot, portablecookpot). recipe (table) - recipe definition table containing name, test function, priority, weight, and other properties. is_mod_food (boolean) - whether this recipe comes from a mod.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: None documented.

AddIngredientValues(names, tags, cancook, candry)

• Description: Registers ingredient values and tags for one or more prefabs. Automatically creates cooked and dried variants if flags are enabled.
• Parameters: names (table) - list of prefab names to register. tags (table) - key-value pairs of tag names and their values (e.g., {meat=1, veggie=0.5}). cancook (boolean) - whether to create a _cooked variant. candry (boolean) - whether to create a _dried variant.
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states: None documented.

AddRecipeCard(cooker, recipe)

• Description: Registers a recipe card for cookbook UI display.
• Parameters: cooker (string) - the cooker prefab name. recipe (table) - recipe definition with name property.
• Returns: Nothing.

IsCookingIngredient(prefabname)

• Description: Checks whether a prefab name is a valid cooking ingredient.
• Parameters: prefabname (string) - the prefab name to check.
• Returns: boolean - true if the prefab is a registered cooking ingredient, false otherwise.
• Error states: Handles alias mapping for inconsistent naming conventions.

IsModCookerFood(prefab)

• Description: Checks whether a food product comes from a mod rather than official game content.
• Parameters: prefab (string) - the food product prefab name.
• Returns: boolean - true if the food is from a mod, false if official.
• Error states: Returns false if the mod is unloaded (cannot test against unloaded mod data).

HasModCookerFood()

• Description: Checks whether any mod cooking foods are currently registered.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: boolean - true if mod cooking foods exist, false otherwise.

IsModCookingProduct(cooker, name)

• Description: Checks whether a specific recipe product for a cooker comes from an enabled mod.
• Parameters: cooker (string) - the cooker prefab name. name (string) - the recipe product name.
• Returns: boolean - true if the product is from an enabled mod, false otherwise.
• Error states: Iterates through all enabled mods; may be performance-intensive with many mods.

GetIngredientValues(prefablist)

• Description: Calculates aggregated ingredient tags and counts for a list of prefabs.
• Parameters: prefablist (table) - list of prefab names to analyze.
• Returns: table - contains tags (aggregated tag values) and names (prefab counts).
• Error states: Returns empty tables if no valid ingredients found.

GetRecipe(cooker, product)

• Description: Retrieves the recipe definition for a specific product from a specific cooker.
• Parameters: cooker (string) - the cooker prefab name. product (string) - the recipe product name.
• Returns: table or nil - the recipe definition table if found, nil otherwise.
• Error states: Returns nil if no recipes registered for that cooker or product not found.

GetCandidateRecipes(cooker, ingdata)

• Description: Finds all potentially valid recipes for a given set of ingredients, sorted by priority.
• Parameters: cooker (string) - the cooker prefab name. ingdata (table) - ingredient data from GetIngredientValues, containing names and tags.
• Returns: table - list of candidate recipe tables sorted by priority (highest first). Returns top candidates only if multiple exist with same priority.
• Error states: Returns empty table if no valid recipes found.

CalculateRecipe(cooker, names)

• Description: Determines the final recipe that will be produced from a set of ingredients using weighted random selection.
• Parameters: cooker (string) - the cooker prefab name. names (table) - list of ingredient prefab names.
• Returns: string, number - recipe name and cook time in seconds. Returns nil if no valid recipe found.
• Error states: Returns nil if no candidate recipes match the ingredients. Uses math.random() for weighted selection among candidates.

Events & listeners

Not applicable (this is a utility module, not an entity component with event listeners)