Cooking – Craft or Profession?

[Gamer Girl]

So where does the skill of cooking go, craft or profession? This has come up in one of my groups.

I'd say that Profession(Cooking) covers basic cooking and in general simple meals for large groups of people. This covers most housewife types cooking, the average tavern cook, ship's cook and so forth.

Craft(Cooking) is more along the line of a 'master chief'. This person follows detailed instructions and makes truly remembered meals. The cook for a king, noble or high class tavern...but also the simple folk that love to cook.

I'd say that most of the world gets by with profession(cooking) just fine. It's only the people that love cooking that make it an art(craft). So when grandma makes a table sized gingerbread house...that's craft(cooking).

[Geigan]

Sounds reasonable, though you could argue just the opposite as well. Craft(cooking) if you want to make something typical from a recipe, but profession(cooking) could refer to all the trappings of a master chef. Stuff like having to keep up with your own restaurant, cooking in a professional kitchen environment, etc. Then again the different cooking could just be different schools of thought for how one should cook. Being based on two separate ability scores would imply that how one does each is very different on a basic level. Craft(cooking) being the strict recipes and detailed instructions, and the profession (cooking) being the intuition and experimentation of what tastes best.

[Yora]

I think Craft is about producing objects from raw materials, which cooking would be.
Profession seems to be more about activities that relate to performing a service or using equiment that does not produce objects.

A chef could have lots of ranks in Craft (cooking), but also ranks in Profession (restaurant owner).

[Fouredged Sword]

Craft (cooking) - how to make a meal that tastes really good. More artistic and about the creation of a good meal.
Profesion (Cook) - how to make money as a chef or cook, including cooking large quantities and multitasking in a kitchen. More fiscal and about how to make a profit doing the cooking.
Preform (Cooking) - How to put on a show as you cook - I know you have been to one of those fancy Japanese steakhouses that they cook at your table while juggling knives!

Really though, with the craft rules, you make a lot of food really really quickly. The GP value of a simple meal makes any high DC check produce one very very quickly.

[grassy]

You are trained in a livelihood or a professional role, such as
apothecary, boater, bookkeeper, brewer, cook, driver, farmer, fisher,
guide, herbalist, herder, hunter, innkeeper, lumberjack, miller,
miner, porter, rancher, sailor, scribe, siege engineer, stablehand,
tanner, teamster, woodcutter, or the like.

The description of profession lists cook, therefore, it would definitely go in profession.

However, it's such a minor change for a DM to make, that there really aren't any negative repercussions to changing it to Craft. Adding a second one for craft might cause some unnecessary complexity, but it's still not really a big deal.

[Leon]

Cooking - Craft: Knowing how to make raw food into edible food
Chef/Cook - Profession: Knowing the other details of Food Service and its related area's

[Morithias]

Cooking is officially a profession skill it is stated in the DMG2 under the secondary skills of "Tavern" in the business section page 182.

[Fax Celestis]

Craft (cooking) - how to make a meal that tastes really good. More artistic and about the creation of a good meal.
Profesion (Cook) - how to make money as a chef or cook, including cooking large quantities and multitasking in a kitchen. More fiscal and about how to make a profit doing the cooking.
Preform (Cooking) - How to put on a show as you cook - I know you have been to one of those fancy Japanese steakhouses that they cook at your table while juggling knives!

Really though, with the craft rules, you make a lot of food really really quickly. The GP value of a simple meal makes any high DC check produce one very very quickly.

Pretty much this. The difference between a craft check and a profession check is summarized in a single question: "are you making money at this?" If no, craft. If yes, profession. You can have Craft (Cobbling), or Profession (Cobbler). The former lets you make shoes, the latter lets you sell shoes. Two different skills that do pretty much the same thing. Its one of those ridiculous margins in the rules.

[missmvicious]

The difference between Craft and Profession is, in it's simplest form, this:

Craft let's you make a product for less than it's worth.
Profession let's you sell a service for what you're worth.

PHB: pg. 80 [Profession Checks]
Check: You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your Profession check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the profession’s daily tasks, how to supervise helpers, and how to handle common problems. For example, a sailor knows how to tie several basic knots, how to tend and repair sails, and how to stand a deck watch at sea. The DM sets DCs for specialized tasks.

Skill: Profession is subtly different from Skill: Craft in that Profession implies more of a cursory knowledge of the skills involved in preparation and development of a product, but advanced knowledge in the sales and production side. Think Restaurant Manager vs. Chef. Line Chef can Craft the bajeezus out of the customer's dinner, but may struggle to run the store in a way that is financially profitable and therefore sustainable. However, if that Chef quit, the Manager could fill in as a Chef, but noticeably not as well as the Chef and product quality and service would dip.

IMHO, Profession is for NPCs. Commoners and Experts put ranks in Profession, because that is how they will make their money most, if not all, of their life. If an Adventurer puts ranks into one of the two, the more fluff relevant (and more generally applicable choice) is Craft. It can be used without the need to seek a customer and can save the party some money.

PCs who put ranks in Profession will generally put it in there to fit a background story, like Profession: Guard/Mercenary/Sailor/Actor etc. But it's kind of a waste of SP, since you can just add that to your background story as part of your fluff.

[deuxhero]

Profession:Sailor actually has mechanical uses in It's Wet Outside. I think there are some other explict uses for profession, plus the odd prc qualification.

[Dr.Epic]

Anyone else get FMA flashbacks from this or am I just such a huge nerd for that show:
Cooking is an art!
No! It's a science!

Oh, obscure anime references!

I kind of think survival. Turning something unprepared and possibly hazardous into nutrition. There are many poisonous plants/animals out there that can be cooked but they have to be prepared in just the right way.

[DonutBoy12321]

Belkar has ranks in Profession: gourmet chef, so it's a Profession skill.