I was obsessive and completionist regarding my professions long before the Achievement System was put into place. But Achievements have exacerbated these tendencies. Case in point: Cooking recipes.
I had always thought my druid had a comprehensive selection of the recipes available to the Alliance. I mean, yeah I wussed out on the Broodlord chain well before I had the recipe for [Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops]* in my grasp, but I did have all the cooking daily recipes and even the Cenarian Circle’s [Smoked Desert Dumplings].
But then I spied the Sous Chef Achievement for 100 recipes, which was achievable before the Expansion, and was perplexed. How had I missed another 15 possible recipes? Thinking back, it’s possible that on my first character (who, incidentally, is still my main) I didn’t pick up cooking initially, and thus hadn’t gathered all the lowbie recipes. Also, with the addition of the Draenei starting area, they must have added some quests and recipes there as well.
And then I saw the Chef de Cuisine achievement for 160 cooking recipes, only attainable after progressing through Wrath, at which point I got serious about it. And thus, another big ol’ list was born…
Download my list of Warcraft cooking recipes in a PDF or read on for the list in HTML after the jump.
* Turns out this annoying recipe is required to get the achievement as of right now, unless you are a rogue and can thus learn thistle tea. Patch 3.1 will provide at least a couple new recipes to solve for that.