Why do you think it's a high price? The lowest one on sale in the auctions now is 162.5 currants per stew. If the seller instead sold the stew directly to a tool vendor, they would get 160 currants per stew. Considering the listing fee of 3 currants per stew and commission of 13 currants, the seller will actually only get 146.5 currants from that stew. If all they care about is currants, they would be much better off selling it to a tool vendor, as they are selling at a loss right now.
I sell awesome stew at auction when I make extra, not for the money (because I would make far more by selling it to a tool vendor), but because I would prefer to see that oh-so useful food go to a real player than have it disappear into the bottomless void of the tool vendor's bags.
I think stew is undervalued. I grow/harvest the ingredients myself, so I don't put money in it. But the time and energy used until it's all finished - for such little currents way to much work. But maybe I'm just too lazy. ;)
Awesome stew is a huge time sink because of the beans. If you're cooking in order to add value to basic ingredients like meat or produce, there are other better recipes that don't require you to wander Ur constantly stopping at bean trees. I switched to Juicy Carpaccio completely used up my meat stockpile.
Yeah, tool vendors pay 80% value -- I believe the others pay 70%.
Either way, auction prices for stew make it not worth the time to sell by auction. I'm surprised the price hasn't crept back up, considering how many players come to realize they're not getting a better return from players than they would from tool vendors. But there's probably some that put it up at the current prices just to be nice.
I think most people don't know that they're selling for less than they could get from a vendor. The price that automatically appears by default when you're about to list an item on auction is the amount that would allow you to break even, giving you the same amount you would get if you sold it to a tool vendor, taking the fees into account. If you edit that box to something lower, you are losing money compared to selling to a tool vendor. If you edit the box to something higher, you are making extra profit (assuming it sells).