Well I think before we get into the bonuses of cooking a foundation must be established before tertiary ideas can be interjected because the fundamentals of cooking build on how much can be accomplished.
In simpler terms, what kind of food will be allowed, e.g Will the type of food used be respected to the allotted time period? What styles of cooking are there? What kind of ingredients will be established as necessary? Do certain races eat only a certain type of food? As the Kran being the rock based lifeform, are they the only race that eats rocks? How much will cooking benefit from other skills such as fishing, woodcutting, alchemy, etc...What type of food will be considered easy or hard to cook? How are cooking materials gathered? What kind of cooking tools are needed? Do you even have to cook, can you just go to a restaurant?
I believe for cooking fundamentals are deemed a necessary since cooking is based on experience. Think of it this way, when you were young you probably made like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which are very simple. Then as you got older you started making grilled cheese sandwiches, even though its easy to make it took more skill now, you didn\'t want to burn the cheese but still keep it melted plus keep the bread toasty. Now your a teen and your baking cookies or cakes for mom or dad as a present or something. Now its getting hard because there\'s a lot of materials and you have to bake it just right little by little, watching after it so it doesn\'t burn. Then if there are any parentsm college students, or chefs here, sometimes you have to cooking Thanksgiving or Christmas meals and it just gets crazy from there...blah blah, you get my drift?
