Food

Food is one of the resources the player collects for all versions of Age of Empires and Age of Mythology.

Without food a civilization can't get far. In fact, it was the advent of agriculture that allowed humans to create permanent villages and towns instead of being nomadic hunter-gatherers. In order to train units and advance through the different ages, food is usually needed.

Hunt
Animals are a good source of food especially during the early game, providing large amounts of food with a high gather rate and capacity with the tradeoff of being non-sustainable. The main disadvantage is that they are scattered all over the map. Some animals, such as gazelles, run away from units. This can be useful, because with enough patience, one can use his/her units to herd them closer to the granary or town center in AOE I or the Mill in AOE II. Some animals cannot be hunted (birds, turtles,wolves). Note that in all AoE games, the food content of an animal deteriorates over time; thus, ideally they should be collected by a large amount of villagers with a relatively close distance to the food drop-off point.

Gather
Forage bushes are typically scattered throughout the map in clumps at the start of the game. These are used early on since they produce food at a high rate and are relatively accessible, allowing a boost for budding civilizations. These food sources usually do not last very long because they are not very common and have high gather rates.

Farm
In AoE, farms can be built by villagers only after you have built a market. They contain a limited quantity of food. They can be farmed by multiple villagers, but they deteriorate more quickly.

Farms in Age of Empires II are similar to those in AoE, except you must first build a mill, and that they can be replanted by right clicking, (or through the use of queue in the Conquerors Expansion and that they no longer obstruct unit movement nor that multiple villagers can farm a single farm.

Farms in AoM are different from the AoE and AoEII farms because they have infinite food.

Farms in AoEIII, called mills, are different too. They produce infinite food at a rate determined by the number of gatherers, with as many as ten working on one mill.

Farms are critical to a player, especially in long games, since many initial sources of food are exhausted before the end of the game. They take up space, though, and require wood to build, so other sources of food tend to be more effective while they last.

Markets
Gold can be traded for food. Food can be obtained this way in all versions except for AoE. This is because AoE markets do not support a resource exchange.

Fishing
Fishing boats, caravels, villagers can usually gather fish if there is a significant amount of water on the map. Fishing is the best form of food collection, along with farms, because boats are cheap, cost only wood, and they don't waste villagers. Task your food-collecting villagers to trees instead.

Fishing is most effective in Age of Mythology because fishing spots in that game contain an infinite amount of food.

Herding (AoE II onwards)
Age of Empires II introduced Sheep as a domestic animal with more types on later games. They could be found anywhere on the map as neutral units and when come to contact with a playable unit, their collars turns into the colour of the player's chosen colour and could be controlled, but if they get contacted with enemy unit, they immediately turn into enemy player's control but can be taken back by same means. When tasking a Villager on a domestic animal, he will herd them to the Town Center or the nearest Food drop site and slaughter them one by one and starts gathering meat of them similar to a hunted animal.

There is a (really) small list of the domesticable animals:
 * Sheep (AoE II onwards)
 * Turkeys (AoE II)
 * Cow (AoM and AoE 3)
 * Pig (AoM only)
 * Goat (AoM and AoE III (Asian Dynasties,Chinese))
 * Llama (AoE III)

Fish Traps (AoE II only)
Similar to farms, they are built by fishing boats.They contain 715 food and are built by using 100 wood. They will eventually run out of food and have to be rebuilt.

Factory (AoE III only)
Factories can be set to produce an infinite supply of food, as well as Wood and Coin. I can only be built if you have a "Factory" card and are in the Fortress age or later.

Other methods
Docks (AoE) and Trading Posts (AoE III) are another ways to get food, and act like markets (AoE II). AoE III also offers the option of home city shipments as a means to get extra food.

Cheats to get Food*

 * Age of Empires: Pepperoni Pizza
 * Age of Empires II: Cheese Steak Jimmy's
 * Age of Empires III: Medium Rare Please
 * Age of Mythology: JUNK FOOD NIGHT

* :All the cheats give 1000 food, except "Medium Rare Please" which gives 10,000.