I started up on Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children so I am at Level 1 Tech on everything. I have been looking around this site and noticed the mention of stews several times. My question is, what does it take to make a stew and how do you do it? It would be really great if someone could help me out. Thanks!

You need to have 2nd level in a certain tech, and then take a villager and look around on the ground for something new... from there, you'll prob be able to figure it out. If not, check the guides in the Guides Section of the forum

TLC Guides

Thanks to your advice, I will be cooking up stews in no time!

Before I buy the required Tech to enable you to make stews, I was just wondering if stews count as something for FOOD. For instance, if you make a stew, it would be +8 FOOD. Or is the stew just a form of using FOOD that you have already gathered?

It uses food you've already gathered, but it IS a way of stretching the food (like stews in real life.. lol) and some stews are really really useful too

turtlezrock00,

making stew does not add to your food supply.

the question you are trying to ask is "what is stew useful for?"

the answer can be found in this guide to stew recipes post but beware it is a spoiler:
http://www.ldwforums.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=53375&page=1#Post53375

Thanks for your advice. I will check it out.

Making stew DOES add to available food, as bajantara said. Your villagers do take from the food bin to make stew, but they also get to eat more from the stew than they took out of the food bin.

Oops, my mistake.

When I made my first stew (a poison one) yesterday, I lost 24 food points. After reading your response, I just experimented and made a non-poisonous one, and (yay!) I gained 22 food points.

Note to self: poison, bad! non-poison, good!

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(If I were more motivated, I would attempt each of the possible recipes several times, and keep track of the food points.)

There are only 3 herbs in each recipe, not 6. You choose only 3 of the 6 available herbs for each stew.