I don't know about cooking because thermal waters tend to be sulfuric but for example - Tbilisi was a settlement of hunters who would use "free" hot water to ma

I don't know about cooking because thermal waters tend to be sulfuric but for example - Tbilisi was a settlement of hunters who would use "free" hot water to make animal leather soft. Archaeologists discovered evidence of continuous habitation of the Tbilisi - since the early Bronze Age, and stone artifacts dating to the Paleolithic age.