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Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: harborpirate on October 31, 2010, 01:46:15 am

Title: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on October 31, 2010, 01:46:15 am
Last Updated Jul. 30th, 2011.


This is an attempt to record all brewing and cooking suggestions from all over the forum in one place and unify them into a cohesive whole. It is a brainstorming thread about all brewing and cooking related items, features and events. Please feel free to contribute your ideas, point out flaws, or provide useful images, links or source materials.

This is not a discussion about game mechanics, balance issues, bugs or anything else not related to cooking or brewing.

I will try to fit as many of the ideas together into a workable whole as possible, but some of these ideas might conflict with one another.

UNDER NO CONDITION is this thread meant to be the end all, be all absolute PROPER place to post a food or cooking related suggestion. DO NOT berate others for not posting here. Instead invite them here, or link their suggestion into this thread.


General Suggestions:
Miscellaneous things that do not fit into another category, this section is also the catch-all for new ideas.


More Authentic Cooking and Brewing:
These suggestions are geared towards making the cooking and brewing process a better simulation of how they work in the real world.

Ingredient Based Cooking
Cooking by Combining Ingredients is one of the most commonly suggested cooking changes. The following suggestions are all related to how ingredient based cooking would work. Example spreadsheet (http://www.petit-creux.fr/f589dc6/How%20to%20serve%20dwarves.xls).


More Food/Drink/Ingredient Types
New ingredients would be anything that already exists or should logically exist within the game that cannot currently be cooked and/or brewed but should be allowed to be integrated into booze or meals.


Storage and Preservation
Modifying how food is preserved and stored  by adding increased spoilage and means to preserve ingredients to prevent it.


Economy
Economic suggestions related to food and drink.


Moods
Artifact food items and other possibilities at the crossroads of moods and cooking.


Quality
Brew and Meal Quality and ways it can be affected.


Happy Thoughts
The effects of food and drink on dwarves.

Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on October 31, 2010, 07:05:52 am
    * Brewing and Cooking Requires Fuel - Cooking and brewing should require wood or some other fuel.

Food can be cooked with coke or charcoal, but it can also be cooked with "firewood", gathered via a "Firewood Gathering Area" zone much like sand-gathering. Firewood zones can be placed over any vegetated area. (Or, once fruit-picking is implemented, which is probably the best time to bring in all these cooking ideas, firewood can be gathered from any tree.)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: GaxkangtheUnbound on October 31, 2010, 08:12:25 am
Quote
Variety is the Spice of Life - Eating or drinking too much of the same thing should give dwarves unhappy thoughts.
It already does. I've fed my dwarves beer for a season. They got unhappy thoughts from drinking the same old booze.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: uttaku on October 31, 2010, 09:20:02 am
Brewing shouldn't require fuel, or at least brewing beer and wine shouldn't. Having personally done both I can safely say that that you don't have to use fire. Sprirts should though, for the still.

Additionally I think caravans should purchase some food, they have to eat on thier to the next fort and I'm sure they wouldn't be above buying a few luxury foods as a treat, espically if they do a lot of trade at your fort. Also this could lead to a new sub type of food, food that is designed to last a long time, salted meat, beef jerky, candied items etc etc which they would buy to sustain them for the whole trip/ still sellable at the next fort (though who would buy them is questionable). Also i think parmasan cheese kept for a hell of a long time (although I could be wrong)

Also some dishes do use the same ingredient in several ways ie minced and sliced beef.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on October 31, 2010, 11:26:26 am
The whole point of making Lavish luxury meals is to sell them. The payoff is in their great value, as measured in dwarfbucks/barrel. So the idea of preventing sale of lavish meals (Trade Only Raw Ingredients) is counter to the goal of producing high-value food. It is also a step in the wrong direction economically, by attempting to curtail business in order to cut down on player wealth. Bad idea all around.

It is a game, and the player needs rewards and payoffs in order to continue playing. Feed the player. If the player happens to have huge amounts of dwarfbucks, the reasonable solution is to give the player some way to spend that wealth.

Determining Meal Value - The value of a meal is already determined by the number, cost, and preparation skill of it's ingredients. See the wiki entry on Value of a Prepared Meal (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/40d:Kitchen#Value_of_a_prepared_meal)

Recent threads on cooking:
Cooking Overhaul - Eternal Suggestion (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=68847.0)
Bread & Baking (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=70015.0)
Down with prepared meals (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60681.0)
Cooking arc (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=48847.0)
A variety of food oriented things (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=48068.0)
A straightforward cooking fix, using existing mechanics (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=46121.0)
Simple cooking tweak (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=41293.0)
Prepared food suggestion (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34091.0)
Improved foods (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=32223.0)
Food (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=29992.0)
On subject of food (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=28964.0)
Preparation, Preservation and Hungry Hungry Homonids (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=27501.0)
Cookbooks and more food suggestions (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=26595.0)
Nomenclatures in cooking/food combos (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=26486.0)
Fix the cooking exploit (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25450.0)
Specific Foods and Recipes (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25425.0)
Cooking Techniques other than "mincing" (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=20434.0)
Simple food stuff ... stuff (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=19427.0)
Smokehouse, Salting, Pickles (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6021.0)
More Meals [bloat] (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3892.0)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on October 31, 2010, 03:05:55 pm
You missed the point of this thread. I already know about all those threads - that's where this information comes from. Like previous watery diversity, underground diversity, and others; this thread is an attempt to list all community ideas on a particular topic in one place. If you'd like to suggest alternatives, please do and I will add them to the list. Thanks.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on October 31, 2010, 04:13:18 pm
You missed the point of the links, which is to link all those community ideas on the topic into one place. Also, I don't really care what you happen to already know. It's a community service.

Also, you should delete the ideas that are already implemented in game. Specifically, the "Variety is the spice of life" already exists both for food and for drink, and the "Determining Meal Value" exists and has always been calculated as suggested. Both of those ideas are part of the game, and are not suggestions for improvement or change; hence they should be removed.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on October 31, 2010, 05:16:27 pm
You missed the point of the links, which is to link all those community ideas on the topic into one place.
The frequent cries of "duplicate post" in these forums caused me to miss the intent of your having posted the links. I tried to make sure to follow the threads mentioned earlier in other cooking threads, hopefully I managed to get them all, but if you see a suggestion missing please let me know.

Also, you should delete the ideas that are already implemented in game. Specifically, the "Variety is the spice of life" already exists both for food and for drink, and the "Determining Meal Value" exists and has always been calculated as suggested. Both of those ideas are part of the game, and are not suggestions for improvement or change; hence they should be removed.

No question. I hadn't had a chance yet since editing that monster on my phone is nigh impossible.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on October 31, 2010, 05:21:19 pm
Quote
Variety is the Spice of Life - Eating or drinking too much of the same thing should give dwarves unhappy thoughts.
It already does. I've fed my dwarves beer for a season. They got unhappy thoughts from drinking the same old booze.

Noted and removed. Thanks!
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on October 31, 2010, 05:37:53 pm
Brewing shouldn't require fuel, or at least brewing beer and wine shouldn't. Having personally done both I can safely say that that you don't have to use fire. Sprirts should though, for the still.
Noted. I've removed brewing out of the fuel requirement suggestion, since "some do and some don't" seems like it would be confusing.

Additionally I think caravans should purchase some food, they have to eat on thier to the next fort and I'm sure they wouldn't be above buying a few luxury foods as a treat, espically if they do a lot of trade at your fort. Also this could lead to a new sub type of food, food that is designed to last a long time, salted meat, beef jerky, candied items etc etc which they would buy to sustain them for the whole trip/ still sellable at the next fort (though who would buy them is questionable). Also i think parmasan cheese kept for a hell of a long time (although I could be wrong)
Salted and smoked items are included in the suggestions. They would not spoil and could be traded. General consensus in suggestion threads seems to be that in-game cheeses are hard and should not spoil. Thus they could also be traded in bulk.
I've added a clause about caravans accepting a limited amount of cooked, ready to eat food for their own use, since this seems a logical extension to the suggestion.

Also some dishes do use the same ingredient in several ways ie minced and sliced beef.
Noted. I've modified that line to try to cut to the heart of the original intent, to eliminate "this is a plump helmet roast topped with plump helmet slices, in a plump helmet sauce, served on a plump helmet".
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on October 31, 2010, 06:00:58 pm
The whole point of making Lavish luxury meals is to sell them. The payoff is in their great value, as measured in dwarfbucks/barrel. So the idea of preventing sale of lavish meals (Trade Only Raw Ingredients) is counter to the goal of producing high-value food. It is also a step in the wrong direction economically, by attempting to curtail business in order to cut down on player wealth. Bad idea all around.

It is a game, and the player needs rewards and payoffs in order to continue playing. Feed the player. If the player happens to have huge amounts of dwarfbucks, the reasonable solution is to give the player some way to spend that wealth.
Some players have argued that the extreme value of cooked foods borders on an exploit, and decreases the difficulty of later game economy in a way that detracts from the "fun".

For what its worth, I agree that the food industry needs to be a viable way of driving an economy. It seems like we could have both realism/verisimilitude and still retain the food industry by giving players ways to prepare food for long term storage and transport. (Finely smoked salmon jerky, and the like.) If travelers/visitors are ever included, selling ready to eat meals to them would be viable as well.

Determining Meal Value - The value of a meal is already determined by the number, cost, and preparation skill of it's ingredients. See the wiki entry on Value of a Prepared Meal (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/40d:Kitchen#Value_of_a_prepared_meal)
Noted. I've moved the text about spice value into the renamed "logical ingredient value" suggestion.

Recent threads on cooking:
[huge list]

Thanks for providing that list for the benefit of others.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Chocolatemilkgod on October 31, 2010, 06:26:51 pm
Requring fuel? No...Though I do like the fermenting idea. Perhaps some dwarves like drinks that have fermented longer.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: therahedwig on October 31, 2010, 06:42:03 pm
The whole point of making Lavish luxury meals is to sell them. The payoff is in their great value, as measured in dwarfbucks/barrel. So the idea of preventing sale of lavish meals (Trade Only Raw Ingredients) is counter to the goal of producing high-value food. It is also a step in the wrong direction economically, by attempting to curtail business in order to cut down on player wealth. Bad idea all around.

It is a game, and the player needs rewards and payoffs in order to continue playing. Feed the player. If the player happens to have huge amounts of dwarfbucks, the reasonable solution is to give the player some way to spend that wealth.
Some players have argued that the extreme value of cooked foods borders on an exploit, and decreases the difficulty of later game economy in a way that detracts from the "fun".

For what its worth, I agree that the food industry needs to be a viable way of driving an economy. It seems like we could have both realism/verisimilitude and still retain the food industry by giving players ways to prepare food for long term storage and transport. (Finely smoked salmon jerky, and the like.) If travelers/visitors are ever included, selling ready to eat meals to them would be viable as well.
Infact, maybe it could be that the higher someone's skill level is better they want their food? (Or the better food they'd want to eat). So player would want to increase the general quality of their food supplies to attract more valuable immigrants.(Infact, you could also apply this to other similar factors like clothes and furniture)(Though, for balancing you'd need an insane wealth to be able to attract highmaster or legendary immigrants through this system)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Kurouma on October 31, 2010, 08:00:26 pm
This paves the way for dwarven taverns and restaurants, another perma-suggestion.
Do we include a room designation for this? Kitchen, chairs, tables. Dwarfs will normally grab their own meals from the stockpile but if they're hungry/thirsty while they're On Break then they can go order something from the tavern. Maybe it's only available post-economy and they have to pay for it? The bonus is they get to have a break and eat at the same time, cutting dwarf downtime. With happy thoughts if the meal is good.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on October 31, 2010, 08:57:45 pm
Requring fuel? No...

IMO the big problem with fuel is the need to be constantly using up valuable resources better spent elsewhere. On the other hand if it's made so that cooking fuels last a lot longer, like one unit of charcoal to 10 meals (or whatever), it would get less painful. And make it possible to gather firewood without using up valuable fuels at all (at the cost of needing one unit of firewood per meal or something).

That would probably be best managed with a Fuel stockpile option, holding coke, charcoal, and firewood.

Plus there's the extra-Fun option of Magma Kitchens.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Chocolatemilkgod on October 31, 2010, 09:51:59 pm
Plus there's the extra-Fun option of Magma Kitchens.

No...Cause then the food would be burnt all the time  :P
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Sunken on November 01, 2010, 03:41:15 pm
I personally think that the list should include "communal cooking", from the "down with prepared meals" thread (if not others as well). TV dinners seem unrealistic and boring. Eating in taverns or all together in the dining hall would be more cool and dwarfy. Cooking would be more of a full-time job then, and making high quality food for everyone in the time alloted would require multiple cooks or a very skilled one. Dwarfs who get too hungry too early and dwarfs working too far away can still scrounge simple foodstuffs like before, but may get a bad thought.

To me, this seems like a bigger improvement than adding complexity to recipies, though I realize it would mean significant changes to dwarf behavior. Still, it should be in the list.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 01, 2010, 05:45:23 pm
There should be more variety of levels of cooking
Sure you could do all cold serve immediately food, but it will be lower quality than that with fuel -- less happiness or whatnot.
There are salads, but I'd rather not have to eat uncooked salad for the rest of my life -- even pickled salads would get old.  Hey, with ice you could make ice cream. 
But, if cooking were an absolute need (due to depression spirals) I think it would essentially make deserts and the like 100% unlivable.

Good work summing up all the ideas in one post
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Chocolatemilkgod on November 01, 2010, 06:00:28 pm
Still, it should be in the list.

Ahahahah!! Get it? A still is where you brew drinks, and he also said still for...You know what, never mind.

But I agree with the down with prepared foods thread, or at least how they are. I mean Wine + Fat = biscuts?! Maybe just easy cooking. Perhaps adding cooked foods together makes meals (food packaging).

However I LOOOOOVE the idea of pubs and taverns. Now dwarves might actually use one or two of the thousands of mugs that they make!
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Andeerz on November 01, 2010, 06:22:31 pm
:D

Meee too!  Pubs and taverns FTW. 

About cooking; I think if all the perceived exploits are to be eliminated for good, food spoilage of all non-preserved foods, including prepared meals, needs in (as has been suggested before).  That way, selling prepared meals to caravans would be pointless (unless they were made of non-perishable items) as they should be, I think. 

If food spoilage is in, it would also make the dining hall all the more vital beyond simply providing an arbitrary place to eat and get happy thoughts.  Cooking was certainly a big economic activity, and the commonly held image in fantasy games of large dining halls in castles, as well as crowded taverns and inns is not necessarily off the mark!  As food spoilage, especially of meats, was a huge deal before refrigeration, having a large communal eatery where everyone could eat at around the same time was the most practical way of getting everyone to food before spoilage.  Of course, there are a lot of social reasons for having such eateries as well...

Preserved foods, including bread and dried/smoked/cured foodstuffs, would also be useful and commonplace in DF for the same reasons they were IRL if food spoilage was in.  :D   
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 01, 2010, 06:47:47 pm
I'll try and pull out some actionable suggestions from the communal cooking part of that down with prepared meals thread. It was a bit rambling in that section as I recall but it should be represented here.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 01, 2010, 08:35:38 pm
Spoilage - several techniques have been mentioned for extending the lifespan of food: Smoking, salting, pickling, packing in ice from an icehouse, and drying, to name a few. For the prepared meals, it might be that Lavish meals have a short lifespan, and simple meals have a long lifespan.

If a lavish meal spoils in a couple weeks, there's no point in storing up huge amounts of them. You might commission your chef to put on a lavish meal feast when the caravan arrives -- and that seems perfectly reasonable in role play terms. But for the bulk of the food storage, maybe Simple meals are mostly dried/candied/smoked/pickled stuffs that are meant to last.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 01, 2010, 09:17:05 pm
Spoilage - several techniques have been mentioned for extending the lifespan of food: Smoking, salting, pickling, packing in ice from an icehouse, and drying, to name a few. For the prepared meals, it might be that Lavish meals have a short lifespan, and simple meals have a long lifespan.

If a lavish meal spoils in a couple weeks, there's no point in storing up huge amounts of them. You might commission your chef to put on a lavish meal feast when the caravan arrives -- and that seems perfectly reasonable in role play terms. But for the bulk of the food storage, maybe Simple meals are mostly dried/candied/smoked/pickled stuffs that are meant to last.

I totally agree with everything you just said.

Is food drying different enough from smoking that it should be included as an alternative?

I've added your note about lavish meals perhaps lasting longer than simple ones, this seems like an approach that is more fair to the player, giving better meals a better chance to be eaten.

Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 01, 2010, 10:13:59 pm
I was thinking that rather than simply simple vs. lavish, that you had two quality levels of preserved food, and a few levels of serve immediately.  That way if somebody were to stockpile for various reasons they don't have only junk.  There is a difference between jerky that is essentially a piece of meat somebody left that happened to become dry [even if it was purposeful] and hickory smoked jerky. 
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Misterstone on November 02, 2010, 12:13:54 am
Forgive me if it's already been mentioned in this thread, but a long time ago I suggested two separate reactions for alcoholic drinks:

1) Brewing- should be do-able in a kitchen if you have a barrel (and ingredients, water, etc.)
2) Distilled spirits- done in a still; you turn a brewed mash into high-alcohol spirits in a process that might require fuel.  To make things simpler, instead of having mash as a middle-product (this is not unthinkable when you realize how complicated soap making is...) you could simply have them turn brewed drinks into spirits at a ratio of say 3 barrels of the former to one barrel of the latter.  For instance, dwarven wine is brewed into dwarvish brandy, dwarven beer or ale brewed into whiskey, sunshine brewed into elvish cordial, etc. etc.

Just thought I would put that suggestion back in here...  ;)

Yes, I realize I could easily mod this in with custom reactions or something.   If nothing else, I hope there will at least be a distinction between spirits and brewed drinks.  Spirits could even be used in medicine!! :)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on November 02, 2010, 12:57:25 am
[snip]
Yes, I realize I could easily mod this in with custom reactions or something.   If nothing else, I hope there will at least be a distinction between spirits and brewed drinks.  Spirits could even be used in medicine!! :)

Spirits, especially if it's important to age them properly, would also turn into a great long-time-to-set-up-but-really-valuable trade good.


Another thing - dwarves should have more or less-developed palates, and nobles should probably have a class preference for the fine and finicky. Urist McSchmoe, who doesn't really care about the finer points of *Dwarven Whiskey* or *Dwarven Cheese And Ant Brain Omelette* is happy as long as his beer and stew is of Average Quality. But the Baron, and dwarves with a preference for fine dining should get happier thoughts from lavish meals, but require higher-quality food to avoid unhappy thoughts from eating like a peasant.

There should be an appointed "Head Chef" noble who opens up more options related to cooking - perhaps allowing the player to call morale-raising feasts, schedule meals on the menu and allow more exotic dishes to be cooked.

Nobles should probably demand their own cooking services, perhaps provided by the Head Chef.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 02, 2010, 02:00:08 am
There should be more variety of levels of cooking
Sure you could do all cold serve immediately food, but it will be lower quality than that with fuel -- less happiness or whatnot.
There are salads, but I'd rather not have to eat uncooked salad for the rest of my life -- even pickled salads would get old.  Hey, with ice you could make ice cream. 
But, if cooking were an absolute need (due to depression spirals) I think it would essentially make deserts and the like 100% unlivable.

Good work summing up all the ideas in one post

I've worked the idea of cold prepared foods into the Cooking Requires Fuel suggestion.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 02, 2010, 02:02:35 am
I personally think that the list should include "communal cooking", from the "down with prepared meals" thread (if not others as well). TV dinners seem unrealistic and boring. Eating in taverns or all together in the dining hall would be more cool and dwarfy. Cooking would be more of a full-time job then, and making high quality food for everyone in the time alloted would require multiple cooks or a very skilled one. Dwarfs who get too hungry too early and dwarfs working too far away can still scrounge simple foodstuffs like before, but may get a bad thought.

To me, this seems like a bigger improvement than adding complexity to recipies, though I realize it would mean significant changes to dwarf behavior. Still, it should be in the list.

I've worked it into the list (along with the idea of food servants from the same thread). I tried to make it fit in with all the other suggestions as much as possible without totally losing the original intent. I think it actually ends up flowing into them quite nicely now.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 02, 2010, 02:15:29 am
I was thinking that rather than simply simple vs. lavish, that you had two quality levels of preserved food, and a few levels of serve immediately.  That way if somebody were to stockpile for various reasons they don't have only junk.  There is a difference between jerky that is essentially a piece of meat somebody left that happened to become dry [even if it was purposeful] and hickory smoked jerky.

I've made some changes to the wording that should indicate that preserved foods should be usable in higher quality meals. A clause for meals which use only preserved ingredients in a cold preparation that would last indefinitely has been added as well.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on November 02, 2010, 03:02:46 am
Spoilage - several techniques have been mentioned for extending the lifespan of food: Smoking, salting, pickling, packing in ice from an icehouse, and drying, to name a few. For the prepared meals, it might be that Lavish meals have a short lifespan, and simple meals have a long lifespan.

If a lavish meal spoils in a couple weeks, there's no point in storing up huge amounts of them. You might commission your chef to put on a lavish meal feast when the caravan arrives -- and that seems perfectly reasonable in role play terms. But for the bulk of the food storage, maybe Simple meals are mostly dried/candied/smoked/pickled stuffs that are meant to last.

If some of the changes are added in, do you really think the terms to make food will still be simple, lavish, etc etc? It might change to other things, to a different type of option.

My thoughts would be that there would be additions to this list of usage. Such as "Prepare Hot meal" Would be something akin to. "Butcher dead animal" Something more automated and done by the cooks if the option is allowed, so that dwarves would be able to get a hot meal, eat it, without it rotting out.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 02, 2010, 10:47:20 am
If some of the changes are added in, do you really think the terms to make food will still be simple, lavish, etc etc? It might change to other things, to a different type of option.
In a detailed implementation, the rather arbitrary categories of Easy, Fine and Lavish should probably be replaced. I like the idea of "Hot meal" as a category. It could be that the base ingredient that determines the type of meal has a qualifier for the type of meal, as suggested in the "Cooking Overhaul" thread.

Maybe making a Hot Meal with kitten meat, dwarven flour and cheese produces kitten meat pie (sheppard's pie), which has a rapid spoilage but a high value. Making a cold meal of these ingredients in the same order might produce a kitten sandwich with cheese. And preserving with the same ingredients might make a smoked kitten meat bun, which would have some shelf life.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Misterstone on November 02, 2010, 12:17:55 pm
Hmm, yes "Make Hot Meal" task would be pretty cool.  The hot meals could simply fill up the communal kitchen as a "counter" or sorts (sort of like how smelting objects fills a counter until a certain number is reached, and then an ingot is made)  and dwarves would come and take food from it for as long as the counter is "charged".  However, there would be slow and steady spoilage which would cause the counter to slowly (or quickly?) go down. 

It might also be cool if dwarves could cook food in their own quarters.  However I imagine a huge disaster if dwarves take 5x as long to finish a meal as they do now. :)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 03, 2010, 02:03:36 am
Forgive me if it's already been mentioned in this thread, but a long time ago I suggested two separate reactions for alcoholic drinks:

1) Brewing- should be do-able in a kitchen if you have a barrel (and ingredients, water, etc.)
2) Distilled spirits- done in a still; you turn a brewed mash into high-alcohol spirits in a process that might require fuel.  To make things simpler, instead of having mash as a middle-product (this is not unthinkable when you realize how complicated soap making is...) you could simply have them turn brewed drinks into spirits at a ratio of say 3 barrels of the former to one barrel of the latter.  For instance, dwarven wine is brewed into dwarvish brandy, dwarven beer or ale brewed into whiskey, sunshine brewed into elvish cordial, etc. etc.

Just thought I would put that suggestion back in here...  ;)

Yes, I realize I could easily mod this in with custom reactions or something.   If nothing else, I hope there will at least be a distinction between spirits and brewed drinks.  Spirits could even be used in medicine!! :)

Thanks for posting, somehow I must have missed it when searching.

I've integrated this into the list into a new "More Authentic Cooking and Brewing" section. As always, I tried to make it fit as well as possible with the other suggestions.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 03, 2010, 02:18:52 am
[snip]
Yes, I realize I could easily mod this in with custom reactions or something.   If nothing else, I hope there will at least be a distinction between spirits and brewed drinks.  Spirits could even be used in medicine!! :)

Spirits, especially if it's important to age them properly, would also turn into a great long-time-to-set-up-but-really-valuable trade good.


Another thing - dwarves should have more or less-developed palates, and nobles should probably have a class preference for the fine and finicky. Urist McSchmoe, who doesn't really care about the finer points of *Dwarven Whiskey* or *Dwarven Cheese And Ant Brain Omelette* is happy as long as his beer and stew is of Average Quality. But the Baron, and dwarves with a preference for fine dining should get happier thoughts from lavish meals, but require higher-quality food to avoid unhappy thoughts from eating like a peasant.

There should be an appointed "Head Chef" noble who opens up more options related to cooking - perhaps allowing the player to call morale-raising feasts, schedule meals on the menu and allow more exotic dishes to be cooked.

Nobles should probably demand their own cooking services, perhaps provided by the Head Chef.

I've updated the Economy section to include the Head Chef noble suggestion. Your other suggestions fit quite well with what others have already been mentioning in the thread, and are included.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 03, 2010, 07:23:56 pm
In a detailed implementation, the rather arbitrary categories of Easy, Fine and Lavish should probably be replaced. I like the idea of "Hot meal" as a category. It could be that the base ingredient that determines the type of meal has a qualifier for the type of meal, as suggested in the "Cooking Overhaul" thread.

Maybe making a Hot Meal with kitten meat, dwarven flour and cheese produces kitten meat pie (sheppard's pie), which has a rapid spoilage but a high value. Making a cold meal of these ingredients in the same order might produce a kitten sandwich with cheese. And preserving with the same ingredients might make a smoked kitten meat bun, which would have some shelf life.

Good suggestions. Hot meal vs cold meal has gotten its own item, under the newly titled Storage and Preservation section titled Hot and Cold Meals. It also adopts the second part of your idea, with one tweak: cold meals are always made out of preserved foodstuffs (so they'd always keep). The idea there being that the player, when selecting "Make Cold Meal" is almost certainly trying to set something aside that their dwarves can eat much later, and it seems a bit cruel that Urist McCook will screw up their plans by including some random fresh ingredient.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 03, 2010, 07:26:59 pm
Hmm, yes "Make Hot Meal" task would be pretty cool.  The hot meals could simply fill up the communal kitchen as a "counter" or sorts (sort of like how smelting objects fills a counter until a certain number is reached, and then an ingot is made)  and dwarves would come and take food from it for as long as the counter is "charged".  However, there would be slow and steady spoilage which would cause the counter to slowly (or quickly?) go down. 

It might also be cool if dwarves could cook food in their own quarters.  However I imagine a huge disaster if dwarves take 5x as long to finish a meal as they do now. :)

I've introduced the counter/communal service area suggestion into the newly modified Communal Cooking item under the Economy section. It adds more detail and helps to round that item out.

"Dwarves cook for themselves sometimes" and the similar idea of "real time cooking" have come up a few times now. I'm not certain how that fits in yet, but I'll find a spot for it. I think it seems reasonable that if a dwarf does not use the kitchen, that they can only prepare themselves a cold meal. (Otherwise whats the point of a cook?)

Perhaps when a dwarf can't get a prepared meal (hot or cold) they grab several items when they eat? Its essentially the exact same thing, except that we don't actually see the dwarf make a sandwich out of a bread loaf, pickle, and kitten meat; we just see them grab those three things and eat them. It seems a bit silly to go through the work of having a dwarf actually combine the ingredients when they're just going to eat them a few seconds later.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on November 03, 2010, 07:37:35 pm
Quote
Water Source - Bad (pond) water lowers the quality of booze made with it.

Weren't alcoholic beverages safer than water for a long time because the booze killed off any germs that might be in there? I'm not sure that this fits with that.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Andeerz on November 03, 2010, 07:51:01 pm
Quote
Water Source - Bad (pond) water lowers the quality of booze made with it.

Weren't alcoholic beverages safer than water for a long time because the booze killed off any germs that might be in there? I'm not sure that this fits with that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcohol

I don't see any mention of it being valued for that reason... but that doesn't mean you're wrong at all.  I'd imagine alcoholic beverages may have been safer not only because of the alcohol, but perhaps the competition posed by the benign microbes already in there (like yeast) and other chemical properties of the fluid (osmolarity, pH, etc.)  This is purely speculation on my part, though.  Even if they weren't safer, though, the fact that they could provide calories, make one drunk, and taste and smell better than other things was probably a plus.  But I do think you might be right... I'm going to have to study this a bit more.  :D
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 03, 2010, 08:23:17 pm
Quote
Water Source - Bad (pond) water lowers the quality of booze made with it.

Weren't alcoholic beverages safer than water for a long time because the booze killed off any germs that might be in there? I'm not sure that this fits with that.

Very true, but skunky water makes for skunky beer.
It would still be safe to drink, but it wouldn't taste good.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: uttaku on November 04, 2010, 09:26:38 am
Quote
Water Source - Bad (pond) water lowers the quality of booze made with it.

Weren't alcoholic beverages safer than water for a long time because the booze killed off any germs that might be in there? I'm not sure that this fits with that.

this is indeed true, and was recoginised and follow right up to the 19th century. Lokk at the tb outbreak in london, if was traced to a pump that whos water was contaminated, but the brewery which was next door was fine as the workers drunk small beer (very weak beer) instead.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Misterstone on November 04, 2010, 11:13:43 am
If the small beer did not have germs in it, it's not because the alcohol killed them off.  The alcohol content would have be like strong vodka in order to kill off all the dangerous microbes, I do believe (well, I don't know how hardy TB is).  More likely the process of cooking the wort (the stuff pre-fermentation that later becomes beer) is what sterilized the water.  Just sayin'
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: therahedwig on November 04, 2010, 04:44:04 pm
Quote
Water Source - Bad (pond) water lowers the quality of booze made with it.

Weren't alcoholic beverages safer than water for a long time because the booze killed off any germs that might be in there? I'm not sure that this fits with that.

Very true, but skunky water makes for skunky beer.
It would still be safe to drink, but it wouldn't taste good.
Well, from what I know, beers made from spring water have a better reputation then beers made from faucet water. Infact, a lot of european beers stay small mostly because they prefer to make their beers from specific springwater.
Similarly, Heineken, a faucet water beer is avoided by people who drink beer for the taste because it tastes like mildly bitter water, or more commonly described 'sewage'.

So I suposse it would be cool if taking water directly from a spring can give the beer made with it a boost, or even give the beer a local name.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Andeerz on November 04, 2010, 04:50:28 pm
this is indeed true, and was recoginised and follow right up to the 19th century. Lokk at the tb outbreak in london, if was traced to a pump that whos water was contaminated, but the brewery which was next door was fine as the workers drunk small beer (very weak beer) instead.

But that cholera outbreak you are talking about happened in the 19th century.  Did people recognize the relative safety of alcoholic beverages in medieval times and before?  I have my doubts.  I mean, alcoholic beverages given the processing involved that might kill germs were probably safer to drink than most water sources during these times, BUT it doesn't mean that people recognized this at all.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: therahedwig on November 04, 2010, 06:16:08 pm
Well, to that, I don't know where to find sources for it, but I do know in medieval times people made water out of beer again. Another common drinking source was milk. Aside from that, normal water was avoided like the plague(probably contained the plague as well).
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 04, 2010, 06:42:36 pm

Good suggestions. Hot meal vs cold meal has gotten its own item, under the newly titled Storage and Preservation section titled Hot and Cold Meals. It also adopts the second part of your idea, with one tweak: cold meals are always made out of preserved foodstuffs (so they'd always keep). The idea there being that the player, when selecting "Make Cold Meal" is almost certainly trying to set something aside that their dwarves can eat much later, and it seems a bit cruel that Urist McCook will screw up their plans by including some random fresh ingredient.
Make cold meal is also an option for saving on wood so I think there should be a fancy and therefore spoilable meal [or at least a ruinable meal]
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 05, 2010, 12:53:02 am

Well, from what I know, beers made from spring water have a better reputation then beers made from faucet water. Infact, a lot of european beers stay small mostly because they prefer to make their beers from specific springwater.
Similarly, Heineken, a faucet water beer is avoided by people who drink beer for the taste because it tastes like mildly bitter water, or more commonly described 'sewage'.

So I suposse it would be cool if taking water directly from a spring can give the beer made with it a boost, or even give the beer a local name.

I clarified that item a little bit and added a small tweak to your idea: players who bother to aquire aquifer water to make booze with should be rewarded by a quality bump.

Added your suggestion about notoriety.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 05, 2010, 01:00:05 am

Good suggestions. Hot meal vs cold meal has gotten its own item, under the newly titled Storage and Preservation section titled Hot and Cold Meals. It also adopts the second part of your idea, with one tweak: cold meals are always made out of preserved foodstuffs (so they'd always keep). The idea there being that the player, when selecting "Make Cold Meal" is almost certainly trying to set something aside that their dwarves can eat much later, and it seems a bit cruel that Urist McCook will screw up their plans by including some random fresh ingredient.
Make cold meal is also an option for saving on wood so I think there should be a fancy and therefore spoilable meal [or at least a ruinable meal]

Very good point. I've adjusted the suggestion to split into three options, Hot, Cold, and Preserved. This allows for a no-fuel quality meal option, but still allows players the option to prevent Fool McCook from making spoil-able meals over and over again when the player is intending to store up lower quality meals long term.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on November 05, 2010, 02:12:52 am
I have a small idea myself due to all these thoughts.

What if there was different workshop kitchens. Like...

Small kitchen: 1x1, Can make only "Hot meals". To be used by dwarves in rooms. Mainly stews (think of it as a small pot over fire). Can be translated over to adventure mode as well. This one makes less sense in dwarf fort mode though. Maybe instead it could be be used by military personal, to make their own meals on patrol.

Better equipped: 2x2 or 3x3: Able to make cold meals, longer lasting meals and such. This is what would use preserved foods, able to make either hot meals, or longer lasting preserved/package meals for storage and eating on the go such as military, or for dwarves to carry on their person. (Such as the day that dwarves can eat outside of the storage area, or dining room)

Preserving room: (Insert better name here) able to preserve food, either by adding salt to food types, canning (if allowed) Freezing (requires ice blocks, or sub normal temperature rooms, either by adding alot of ice, or eventual adding of colder cave systems) and the like.

Communal kitchen: 5x5 or 5x2, the sort that one would expect to be a "cafeteria" sort, with a stock of dwarves making food for hungry dwarves to eat without needing crappy cooks. Several cooks would stock the area, ready to take orders and give out meals. Able to make large "potluck" sort of large stews in huge canisters that can last sometime, and is able to stay stocked for when all your cooks decide to go !!Urist McCook!! or some other issue.


I've salvaged these from a few topics, but didn't see em on here. A few might be bad idea's, but it's some idea's anyways.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: antymattar on November 05, 2010, 04:31:52 am
I think I know how this would work in modding.

How to make a food that is not yet kooked but can be implemented in special dishes(Like bread)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That is about as far as I could get. I'll work on spices and other stuff next. You can play with the idea if you want but remember- I OWN YOU!!!  :P .
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: nuker w on November 05, 2010, 05:32:09 am
PTW. I like most of the ideas listed, so i'm keeping an eye out for this.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on November 05, 2010, 06:37:36 am
...
What if there was different workshop kitchens. Like...
...

This kind of spills into things in the interface revamp thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.0)) about making buildings, workshops and rooms work more like hospital zones.

Until then though, the "Small Kitchen" idea works really well if you make it a bit of furniture - call it a stove - that can be built out of rock or metal and added to a room. Put one into a room and dwarves can cook small meals there if they're hungry. The head chef could demand one in their dining room or quarters.


Another thing to think about - should tea and other hot drinks be implemented? Perhaps made from Valley Herbs or some other process->bag plants.

(But probably not Quarry Bush, if they're anything like a curry bush).
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on November 05, 2010, 02:49:27 pm
I did mention it was salvaged from a few other posts along with some thoughts from me.

New drinks would be nice, but until we can get new ways of getting drinks. (seriously, barreling water would be nice just to store it!) But new drinks like hot drinks and such would be good. Could maybe implement hot (pure liquid) soups as drinks as well, satiates hunger a bit, but functions as a drink.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on November 05, 2010, 06:36:33 pm
New drinks would be nice, but until we can get new ways of getting drinks. (seriously, barreling water would be nice just to store it!)

Water barrels, and the ability to buy/sell same would be just plain necessary if you need water to brew. And it doesn't look like buying and selling water has been put into the OP list yet. So that should be an option, especially in desert areas, as well as making it so murky pools don't evaporate to nothing three weeks after you set up shop in a steaming hot swamp.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 05, 2010, 10:43:09 pm
I think I know how this would work in modding.

How to make a food that is not yet kooked but can be implemented in special dishes(Like bread)
(snip)
That is about as far as I could get. I'll work on spices and other stuff next. You can play with the idea if you want but remember- I OWN YOU!!!  :P .

The idea in the Cooking Overhaul thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=68847.0) is better.
It's currently #98 out of 301 suggestions, with seven votes. Vote for it :) (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/eternal_voting.php)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 06, 2010, 02:49:57 am
I have a small idea myself due to all these thoughts.

What if there was different workshop kitchens. Like...

Small kitchen: 1x1, Can make only "Hot meals". To be used by dwarves in rooms. Mainly stews (think of it as a small pot over fire). Can be translated over to adventure mode as well. This one makes less sense in dwarf fort mode though. Maybe instead it could be be used by military personal, to make their own meals on patrol.

Better equipped: 2x2 or 3x3: Able to make cold meals, longer lasting meals and such. This is what would use preserved foods, able to make either hot meals, or longer lasting preserved/package meals for storage and eating on the go such as military, or for dwarves to carry on their person. (Such as the day that dwarves can eat outside of the storage area, or dining room)

Preserving room: (Insert better name here) able to preserve food, either by adding salt to food types, canning (if allowed) Freezing (requires ice blocks, or sub normal temperature rooms, either by adding alot of ice, or eventual adding of colder cave systems) and the like.

Communal kitchen: 5x5 or 5x2, the sort that one would expect to be a "cafeteria" sort, with a stock of dwarves making food for hungry dwarves to eat without needing crappy cooks. Several cooks would stock the area, ready to take orders and give out meals. Able to make large "potluck" sort of large stews in huge canisters that can last sometime, and is able to stay stocked for when all your cooks decide to go !!Urist McCook!! or some other issue.


I've salvaged these from a few topics, but didn't see em on here. A few might be bad idea's, but it's some idea's anyways.

I've added a suggestion about adventure mode allowing you to build a campfire to cook with. Military dwarves hauling around a brick oven on their back seems a bit unrealistic.

Dwarves can already carry rations if they have backpacks, so preserved meals would continue to fit right in.

I've added the Designate kitchen by zone suggestion, even though it overlaps a bit with other threads.

I'd like to flesh the preserving room idea out a little more. Maybe a zone could be designated where dwarves would try to stack ice blocks? In combination with a stockpile setting that allowed you to store raw foods, it could be useful. I'm thinking it actually could fit into the Icebox suggestion (see more on why in the next paragraph).

Does there need to be a separate workshop that will only have a few tasks (for preserving stuff)? Someone somewhere suggested smoking meat in the wood burning workshop, which could work but would be hard for new players to find. Since we're adding fuel requirements to the kitchen, it seems logical to keep all the tasks in one place, especially if the kitchen becomes a zone (where you could add a smoker).

Communal cooking and a meal counter where dwarves can pick up fresh food (cafeteria style) is already in the list.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 06, 2010, 02:50:31 am
...
What if there was different workshop kitchens. Like...
...

This kind of spills into things in the interface revamp thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.0)) about making buildings, workshops and rooms work more like hospital zones.

Until then though, the "Small Kitchen" idea works really well if you make it a bit of furniture - call it a stove - that can be built out of rock or metal and added to a room. Put one into a room and dwarves can cook small meals there if they're hungry. The head chef could demand one in their dining room or quarters.


Another thing to think about - should tea and other hot drinks be implemented? Perhaps made from Valley Herbs or some other process->bag plants.

(But probably not Quarry Bush, if they're anything like a curry bush).

I added Hot Drinks to the list.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 06, 2010, 02:54:25 am
New drinks would be nice, but until we can get new ways of getting drinks. (seriously, barreling water would be nice just to store it!)

Water barrels, and the ability to buy/sell same would be just plain necessary if you need water to brew. And it doesn't look like buying and selling water has been put into the OP list yet. So that should be an option, especially in desert areas, as well as making it so murky pools don't evaporate to nothing three weeks after you set up shop in a steaming hot swamp.

Great point!
I've added both of these suggestions (storing water in barrels and being able to trade them).

Murky pool evaporation is outside the realm of this topic though. It could go in aboveground diversity, or I'm sure there is a thread (or several) out there for it since it is perhaps not quite a bug, but very buglike. (I agree it needs to get fixed)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: uttaku on November 06, 2010, 07:16:07 am
a very small inclusion, for preservation we should also be able to use honey to preserve foodstuffs (when honey is added). I'll addmit that this will only be useful for very certain items mainly fruit and nuts but I swear I've heard of other things (meat etc) but I can't find proof so if anyone else can way in on this I'd be grateful. Also honey itself can last for thousands of years if sealed in a container, egyption honey has been found that is still edible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candied

And I'm not sure if it falls under this threads scope but vinegar has been used throughout history as both a cleaner and (fairly bad) disinfectant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineger
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 07, 2010, 07:10:13 am
there should be "tattered" meals from lower leve;s trying something fancy. 
This seal curry is overspiced it is hardly edible.
eating it provides a negative thought and it is worth LESS than its composite parts.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: NSQuote on November 07, 2010, 02:17:44 pm
The idea of restaurants and taverns would be awesome once the economy is put in.

Even during the caravan arc such things could prove useful. Setting up a masterful restaraunt serving the finest meals and merchants favorite could help you bargain with merchant and increase friendly relations with other races. An elf might relax it's tree-cutting quota after having a delicous vegetarian meals, and a dwarf civ might ask to send more immigrants once they see the quality of life there. You could even add hotels for merchants and visiting nobility to sleep in.

A nice "town" with great food, a tavern, and an inn might even attract some adventurers. They could be a killer for hire, or even a nice arena fighter. And they never need to step foot into your underground base and see your kitten powered magma drowning chambers. This would really fit with the new adventure mode features.

And a good tavern would definitely increase Dwarf happiness. Offer them ten kinds of booze and watch happiness and productivity skyrocket (of course, brewing these fine drinks might take some work).

And I'm all for pretty much every other suggestion too, as long as cook moods are reserved for cooks and peasents.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: TolyK on November 07, 2010, 02:57:45 pm
nice!

my idea for the thread (this has been partially mentioned):
 [there is a dining room, a kitchen zone, a food-pickup zone*, an ingredient pile**, and a raw pile^]
COOKING ON
-OR-
COOKING OFF
*This is where hungry dwarves will pick up their food and where cooks will chuck food when done.
**This is where you tell the "pile" how many of which ingredients you want in it.
^If dwarves can't get an available cook and there's no food in the pickup zone, or you have disabled cooking, they will pick up food here. You can decide what you want here, which would typically be preserved stuff.


You could also make prepared meals specifically at the kitchen, and you could also set TIME BETWEEN COOKING SESSIONS (i.e. fast, normal, slow) to set food creation rates. These would not conflict with orders.

BTW, orders from nobles could be specific but should be from ingredients found in the fortress. Except for the king/queen, of course.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: NSQuote on November 07, 2010, 03:16:17 pm
I like that idea, but penalizing more militant or smaller fortresses for not having huge elaborate kitchens is a bit unfair. Food quality should be the main thing, with service acting as an increase to the Dwarf's happiness. So if a nice roast is picked out of a stockpile and a dwarf gets a happy thought, then maybe the nice service and dining hall quality could be seperate smaller happy thoughts.

Also, if we have taverns we MUST have bar fights as well.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on November 07, 2010, 09:02:48 pm
Quote
but penalizing more militant

Militant can simply buy more goods from caravans then by having a higher content of food, rather then well cooked food. . As many quotes on history on this. The military travels on its stomach, and is probably one of the few things that they would turn on leaders for!

Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 07, 2010, 09:36:40 pm
Also, if we have taverns we MUST have bar fights as well.

Also, if we have taverns we MUST have bar wenches as well ;)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 08, 2010, 02:23:59 am
a very small inclusion, for preservation we should also be able to use honey to preserve foodstuffs (when honey is added). I'll addmit that this will only be useful for very certain items mainly fruit and nuts but I swear I've heard of other things (meat etc) but I can't find proof so if anyone else can way in on this I'd be grateful. Also honey itself can last for thousands of years if sealed in a container, egyption honey has been found that is still edible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candied

And I'm not sure if it falls under this threads scope but vinegar has been used throughout history as both a cleaner and (fairly bad) disinfectant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineger

Added candying in the preservation items. Added a little extra to the vinegar text.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 08, 2010, 02:31:00 am
there should be "tattered" meals from lower leve;s trying something fancy. 
This seal curry is overspiced it is hardly edible.
eating it provides a negative thought and it is worth LESS than its composite parts.

I've added a note about this in the quality section.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on November 08, 2010, 04:49:36 pm
Reading over the class thread has got me thinking that a dining hall/cafeteria/tavern should have some kind of overall quality rating, based on the fanciness of meals and decor, and this should factor into the price of a meal when the economy (and possibly social classes) come into it.

If a cook is working in a low-quality cafeteria, they should be able to get lazy and make lower-quality meals. This way your dwarves won't get priced out of every dining hall.

And speaking of classes, dwarves' preferences for particular foods and drinks should be related to those of their friends and coworkers. If the Count, with his associated Countly preference for 30-year-old Whiskey, is best friends with Urist McSerf the Peasant, then the peasant should be able to pick up the Count's interest in fine liquor. It should also be possible for the Count to get a taste for raw plump helmet, or at least *plump helmet biscuits* if they're masterwork. Higher-class dwarves, or at least those with a more refined palette, should want better quality versions of simple meals (or whatever), but still be able to like plain fare.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 09, 2010, 03:04:05 pm
Reading over the class thread has got me thinking that a dining hall/cafeteria/tavern should have some kind of overall quality rating, based on the fanciness of meals and decor, and this should factor into the price of a meal when the economy (and possibly social classes) come into it.

If a cook is working in a low-quality cafeteria, they should be able to get lazy and make lower-quality meals. This way your dwarves won't get priced out of every dining hall.

And speaking of classes, dwarves' preferences for particular foods and drinks should be related to those of their friends and coworkers. If the Count, with his associated Countly preference for 30-year-old Whiskey, is best friends with Urist McSerf the Peasant, then the peasant should be able to pick up the Count's interest in fine liquor. It should also be possible for the Count to get a taste for raw plump helmet, or at least *plump helmet biscuits* if they're masterwork. Higher-class dwarves, or at least those with a more refined palette, should want better quality versions of simple meals (or whatever), but still be able to like plain fare.

I added a note to the Head Chef item that players should be allowed to set the menu for each Tavern.

I added the last suggestion into the Happy Thoughts section.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Khym Chanur on November 10, 2010, 01:57:09 am
How about booze coming in flavored variants?  In the real world almost all beers are flavored with hops, and before hops were used there were a variety of herbs and berries which were used.  Dwarven beer made with only cave wheat could be "sweet dwarven beer", cave wheat + cave hops = "dwarven beer", and so on.  Allowable flavors, their names and prices would (probably) have to be specified in the raws, rather than being randomly generated like food recipes.

Plus, dwarves could have a preference for for a type of booze and a particular flavor of that booze. "Urist McDrunkard like dwarven wine and especially likes bush quarry flavored dwarven wine".
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: cog disso on November 10, 2010, 04:25:06 am
All religions and nationalities have their own versions of "kosher" laws and food taboos. This might become more common when the religions are fleshed out more, but perhaps the followers of Dwarf God A would never dream of butchering a dog, while the followers of Dwarf God B would never eat a Plump Helmet based food or drink without the addition of a secondary ingredient. Happy thoughts would be generated or reversed by being allowed to conform to or being forced to reject these taboos, and a Grudge could be generated against those who transgress.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 15, 2010, 09:13:20 pm
All religions and nationalities have their own versions of "kosher" laws and food taboos. This might become more common when the religions are fleshed out more, but perhaps the followers of Dwarf God A would never dream of butchering a dog, while the followers of Dwarf God B would never eat a Plump Helmet based food or drink without the addition of a secondary ingredient. Happy thoughts would be generated or reversed by being allowed to conform to or being forced to reject these taboos, and a Grudge could be generated against those who transgress.
I like the idea except for two modifications 1 not all religions/nationalities have dietary laws/food taboos -- only ones with enough resources to do so (excludes at least some of DF).  2 not all adhere to those laws/taboos so a less ardent worhipper should not care, while a more ardent worshiper would REALLY care -- perhaps to the extent of starving to death before eating vs. taboo.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 16, 2010, 04:55:11 pm
roasted grains are edible and were even considered a treat so cooking roast grains may be a quick but cheap way to deal with dwarf wheat, longland grass etc.,
Some items should need to be cooked to be edible.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 16, 2010, 08:30:26 pm
Potatoes aren't really edible until cooked.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 16, 2010, 11:25:46 pm
I'll try and merge these in soon.

Muck root seems like it would be something inedible unless cooked.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 18, 2010, 10:54:44 pm
How about booze coming in flavored variants?  In the real world almost all beers are flavored with hops, and before hops were used there were a variety of herbs and berries which were used.  Dwarven beer made with only cave wheat could be "sweet dwarven beer", cave wheat + cave hops = "dwarven beer", and so on.  Allowable flavors, their names and prices would (probably) have to be specified in the raws, rather than being randomly generated like food recipes.

Plus, dwarves could have a preference for for a type of booze and a particular flavor of that booze. "Urist McDrunkard like dwarven wine and especially likes bush quarry flavored dwarven wine".

I've merged this in with the Hot Drinks suggestion since that one already opened the possibility of "cooking" different drink types.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 20, 2010, 09:41:22 pm
have we mentioned squeezing -- making oils, juices etc?

Oils = frying
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 24, 2010, 09:36:00 pm
did anybody suggest that they believe wine shouldn't increase the amount of food?
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 24, 2010, 11:46:13 pm
Are you referring to the loophole where you could cook roasts out of just booze? The game no longer allows cooking without a solid ingredient.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 24, 2010, 11:50:12 pm
Good point on oils. I'll add it when I get the chance.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 25, 2010, 08:27:20 am
Are you referring to the loophole where you could cook roasts out of just booze? The game no longer allows cooking without a solid ingredient.

no, but If you use 1 solid and one liquid it becomes 2 solid.  (As far as I understand)
I'm saying liquids (or spices) should not add to the amount of food as the liquid boils down and spices are either negligable mass or end up overpowering
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 25, 2010, 04:22:25 pm
I'm saying liquids (or spices) should not add to the amount of food ...

If I add a lot of water to pancake mix I get a lot of pancakes. A solid plus a liquid equalling two solids, and it works out just fine.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 26, 2010, 02:02:01 pm

I think we can all agree that spices should not add to the size of a dish. I've added that note to the spices part of the ingredient based cooking section.

Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 26, 2010, 04:46:23 pm
I modified the Millable Ingredients to account for oils. This seems to me to be the most logical means of obtaining oils and juices, even if its not entirely real-world accurate. I added clarification so that making oils will not result in free food.

I separated out cooking methods in the Ingredient Based Cooking section to separate hot and cold cooking methods, as well as separated spice-based cooking methods (frying with oils) into their own category.

I made some modifications in the Economy section to clarify how short order cooks, the head chef noble, and taverns could all work together. Also made more clear is the server role (bar wenches!).
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 27, 2010, 10:27:29 pm
I'm saying liquids (or spices) should not add to the amount of food ...

If I add a lot of water to pancake mix I get a lot of pancakes. A solid plus a liquid equalling two solids, and it works out just fine.

You get more pancakes, but they are thinner -- more like crepes -- not more food -- otherwise just put one cup flour to a gallon of milk/water and one egg and you'll get a ton of pancakes.  Try it and tell me what you get.  (better yet don't try it I don't want to get blamed for getting a yucky film on your pan).
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 27, 2010, 10:57:01 pm
Try making pancakes without liquid and see what you get. Or try making soup, or an apple pie.

What I'm saying is that at least in some cases, liquids do add to the amount of food.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 28, 2010, 10:43:38 am
Try making pancakes without liquid and see what you get. Or try making soup, or an apple pie.

What I'm saying is that at least in some cases, liquids do add to the amount of food.
But try eating the same amount in volume of soup as you normally eat.  you'll probably still be hungry. 

furthermore I find it almost silly that six vegetables can either make 3 stacks or 5 stacks of prepared food (1.5 or 4 and 2 booze)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on November 28, 2010, 11:23:23 pm
Then we disagree, plain and simple. In my opinion liquid used in cooking counts as food.

If you charge people a penalty for cooking with liquids, they will simply go to the kitchen menu and disable cooking with liquids.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on November 29, 2010, 12:55:10 am
I added a note to Hot Liquid Cooking Methods to include the optional loss of some food units when using hot cooking with liquids. Its on the table, just like all the others it'll be up to Toady to decide if he wants to use it.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on November 29, 2010, 12:31:50 pm
Then we disagree, plain and simple. In my opinion liquid used in cooking counts as food.
Agreed to disagree, and Thanks harbor for putting it on the list.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: SanDiego on November 30, 2010, 08:12:54 am
Great list, I agree with everything but this: Water needed for brewing.
You only need water to produce beer/ale/lager/YouKnowWhatIHaveOnMind; other booze is made by squeezing the fruits (mushrooms, whatever), fermenting the product and then distilling it. No water included except for diluting and that is undwarvenlike.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Urist is dead tome on December 02, 2010, 04:28:29 pm
My thoughts on this are to expand liquor varieties. Adding lager and making ale a type of beer. Also hard liquor and fuel for all booze-making.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on December 02, 2010, 11:26:01 pm
Great list, I agree with everything but this: Water needed for brewing.
You only need water to produce beer/ale/lager/YouKnowWhatIHaveOnMind; other booze is made by squeezing the fruits (mushrooms, whatever), fermenting the product and then distilling it. No water included except for diluting and that is undwarvenlike.

Water for brewing tasks and fuel for distilling tasks, then? I'm not all that familiar with the processes in making various alcohols, but some sort of easy rule so players know when fuel or water would be needed would be ideal.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: TolyK on December 03, 2010, 12:36:04 pm
as I understand it some basic drinks wouldn't require water, but more exotic drinks would get more.

however, using water with the basic drinks would add 1/2 a barrel of booze (necessary diluting) making exotic drinks better is better imo
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Vattic on December 03, 2010, 09:34:08 pm
They have been mentioned in passing but pies should definitely be added. Sweet (fruits, nuts, cheese) or savoury (meat, fish, eggs, cheese) with spices in a flour, fat, and water case. They can be used to store food over long journeys; Historically used at sea. Perfect for storing food that dwarves can heat for themselves later. Pie vendors in cities for the peasants and any adventurers.

Quote
The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the word "pie" as it relates to food to 1303, noting the word was well-known and popular by 1362.
And they were made since long before that, although flaky pastries with fruit are outside are post 1440.

Lots more info on pies and their history. (http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpies.html)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: cog disso on December 05, 2010, 09:07:30 pm
Basic refrigeration is possible. You would need access to ice (so a temperate/cold biome) and it would need to be fashioned into blocks, which would be stored in a special space surrounded by artificial stone so that it doesn't contaminate. Basically, you'd have to "mine" a certain amount of ice blocks and store them in a certain size space to last all summer, but this is technologically minimal, and well within the setting's tech scope.

There is Rock Salt, so it occurs to me that it may be possible to manufacture ice cream in this setting. It would be an EXTREME luxury item, but one that an entire civilization could decide is their crowning achievement (why wouldn't it be?)

SPECIAL BUILDING: CREAMERY

Necessary Equipment:

- Adjacent Farmer's Station
- Barrels (for milk)
- Rock Salt supply
- Cold biome
- Ingredients (1 Milk, 1 Dwarven Sugar, 1 Matrix Substrate (Sweet or Savoury))
- Buckets for storage

New Job Requirement: Creamer.

Like mist, dwarven ice cream generates intense levels of happiness. Unlike mist, it's less of a calculated risk to the fortress itself and more of a highly specialized freedom of workforce. Obviously, fortresses have much better things to be doing than making ice cream, but it's a wildly prestigious activity. 

Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on December 05, 2010, 10:39:07 pm
There is Rock Salt, so it occurs to me that it may be possible to manufacture ice cream in this setting. It would be an EXTREME luxury item, but one that an entire civilization could decide is their crowning achievement (why wouldn't it be?)
.... a wildly prestigious activity.

Not without chocolate  :P
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: cog disso on December 05, 2010, 10:49:27 pm
There is Rock Salt, so it occurs to me that it may be possible to manufacture ice cream in this setting. It would be an EXTREME luxury item, but one that an entire civilization could decide is their crowning achievement (why wouldn't it be?)
.... a wildly prestigious activity.

Not without chocolate  :P

What do you think Plump Helmet Men taste like?

SERIOUSLY THOUGH, ice cream existed in Europe for centuries before the discovery of chocolate. The knowledge of how to make it was a royal secret, so that the prestige of serving it at banquets could be maintained. Much like how medieval gingerbread resembles nothing like the gingersnap-esque things we eat at Christmas nowadays, medieval ice cream was almost like an extremely butterfatty gelato. It was spiced heavily (to reflect the status of the royalty that had access to spices) and containing a lot of nuts and fruits.

Maybe the capability to produce ice cream should be more tied to the previously mentioned banqueting mechanic, as the capper to the meal.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on December 06, 2010, 08:56:53 am
There is Rock Salt, so it occurs to me that it may be possible to manufacture ice cream in this setting. It would be an EXTREME luxury item, but one that an entire civilization could decide is their crowning achievement (why wouldn't it be?)
.... a wildly prestigious activity.

Not without chocolate  :P

read what I quoted.

I meant; it wouldn't be extreme luxury or wildly prestigious w/o chocolate.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on December 09, 2010, 07:04:21 pm
I'll get pies and ice cream added into the list soon. I wasn't aware of the versatility of pies as a preservation method.
The idea of re-heating something makes more sense when adding savory pies as a preservation method, so I'll make more of an effort to fit that in. Ideally if all the suggestions can be made to make sense with one another, I try to do so.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Fidna on December 10, 2010, 02:59:22 pm
Ice cream (such as it was; it wasn't really the same as modern ice cream) wasn't necessarily always reserved for the wealthy (it was in certain places, like England, but not everywhere). In the ancient Middle East it was actually fairly common; ice and snow would be imported and stored in these large underground chambers that were cooled via tall hollow towers to capture cool winds, while keeping the heat out. It was just flavoured with fruit juices and cheap spices usually (I recall one recipe recorded my first an Arab author and later repeated by an Italian monk, where it was essentially plums or figs and peppercorns ground into ice to make for a cold spicy plum-flavored slushy-like dessert).

In some places chilled foods were eaten by common labourers because it kept them cool while they worked. Though to make such a thing affordable required being able to keep and store large quantities of ice and snow with what were in effect huge old school iceboxes, which was doable for very wealthy cities (who mimicked the iron age Persian techniques of large ice-containing caverns), it was more of a trick for smaller places where it'd need to be imported. It was popular for the Romans to just import huge amounts of ice from mountains and pour wine, fruit juices, and mix in nuts and sliced pieces of fruit; naturally that was more expensive, and the Romans didn't often use large storage areas for such things (some existed in the empire's territories in the east but they were probably pre-existing and were just co-opted), leaving them more the purvue of wealthy men, though that itself had kind of a point. It was pretty impressive to show your friends you're so damn rich you can cart in snow in the middle of summer just to eat it while having bizarre orgies and mocking the poor, or whatever it is the idle rich did in those days.

However, point is, that wasn't necessarily true everywhere, even places where acquiring such large amounts of ice and snow was difficult, but that was more an issue of storage.

Edit: Also; not all alcohol should require water. There are some very cheap, disgusting forms of alcohol that are not made with any water, just fermenting juices and a yeast of some sort usually. Such things should probably have a high chance to cause ill effects in whoever drinks them (nausea, unconsciousness, etc.), but they should be an option for producing booze for your dwarves when you're lacking other options.

Also, very poor quality brewing should potentially cause severely bad effects, like blindness. That occurs when producing liquor without disposing of the waste of it. While highly alcoholic, the first stuff that comes out of a still is also insanely poisonous and has to be tossed away once it's done coming out (what comes next is the actual drinkable liquor that's less likely to kill you unless you drink way, way too much). Stills should maybe also produce fumes (and too close to a major heat source, like a forge, said fumes could ignite, if one wants to be real mean about it; though even the heat of the still can itself cause a very large explosion if the fumes are too thick; proper ventilation is extremely important).
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on December 11, 2010, 11:56:51 pm
Ice used to be mined and stored in Ice houses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_%28building%29), which date back as far as 1700 BC.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: TolyK on December 12, 2010, 03:30:54 am
houses built of ice? As in, what I'm doing right now in the open ocean  ;D

yeah
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on December 12, 2010, 11:57:48 pm
I checked the list on page one, but I'm not sure so I'll ask - has anybody explicitly mentioned that juices and milks should be drinkable?

It's obvious, but just in case.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: uttaku on December 13, 2010, 05:08:37 am
I feel I should point out with regards to the above post that wine is made from pure grape juice, no added water......
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Sunken on December 13, 2010, 04:36:50 pm
There is Rock Salt, so it occurs to me that it may be possible to manufacture ice cream in this setting. It would be an EXTREME luxury item, but one that an entire civilization could decide is their crowning achievement (why wouldn't it be?)

You're referring to this (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/10/8/), I don't doubt.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on December 15, 2010, 07:18:58 pm
Another thing: Pots, saucepans and other implements should be required for cooking, at least in Adventure mode.

It may make things more complex to need a pot (or whatever) in Fortress mode, but it's worth thinking about as a method of making it more difficult to prepare stews and roasts.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on December 15, 2010, 09:24:52 pm
Another thing: Pots, saucepans and other implements should be required for cooking, at least in Adventure mode.

It may make things more complex to need a pot (or whatever) in Fortress mode, but it's worth thinking about as a method of making it more difficult to prepare stews and roasts.

I've seen the whole "dwarves use workshops, but no tools" paradox come up in other threads. I think its probably outside the scope of this thread to handle, because it opens up quite a huge line of discussion unto itself. I'll make a note that if tools are included, that food making will need loads of them.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: AngleWyrm on December 17, 2010, 10:34:50 am
It may make things more complex to need a pot (or whatever) in Fortress mode, but it's worth thinking about as a method of making it more difficult to prepare stews and roasts.

There is no such thing as "more difficult;" there is only "more kitchens." Even if a variety of ingredients were required in order to make roasts, it would be simply a matter of "more farm plots." I'm all for both More Kitchens and More Farm Plots.

"Difficult" in this game is just a matter of a problem to be solved.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vhappylurker on January 14, 2011, 01:13:15 pm
I know this was mentioned much earlier in the thread, but I'd say Magma Kitchens could work especially if the option for having multiple types of kitchen workshops were available. Likely, using magma as power source would probably be best used for setting Communal kitchens or anything that was meant to produce large amounts of food in one go.

I'd like to add my own suggestion that butchery and fishing could be expanded to including preserving meats/fishes as well as creation of things like sausages (instead of having kitchens do it). Plus there could be an option for making different cuts of meat at the butcher shop, so you'd get something like *cow ribeye steak roast* instead of just a *cow roast*. There'd also need be certain ingredients required to make specific food items, like sausages requiring at least one unit of animal intestine to make them. We could even add in things like smokehouses and grills as separate workshops. Think of it! Running a dwarven steakhouse that serves the finest beer and tasty unicron t-bone steaks. 8D

Edit: I left out mentioning the possible addition of delicatessens as a seperate workshop specializing in cold meals and preserved meats/cheeses. (Not exactly medieval, I know, but it still be kind of neat to have them.)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: aka010101 on January 17, 2011, 03:52:03 am
on the tone of magma furnaces, i'd like to point out that with all this talk of Ice Cream and iceboxes, there's a uniquely dwarven solution to that problem

Nether-caps

Isn't it a key property of those that the wood from them stays consistently cold? It would make it a LOT more valuable for preserving foods. Always cold beer anyone?
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: K17U on January 17, 2011, 04:45:36 am
I fully support all of this, but I'd like to add three things:

1.)
Brewing wine shouldn't require water, since wine is essentially fermented juice.
It could require processing your prickle berries to juice beforehand though.

2.)
Spoilage could depend on the biome. Food would spoil much faster in a swamp than it would in a desert or on a glacier climate.
Also, different options of preservation might only be possible in certain climates.
I'm thinking of drying especially.

3.)
Similar to how wooden barrels could add to booze flavour, smoking over different kinds of wood could give the food a special flavour.

≡Fungiwood smoked Lamprey≡ anyone?
or ☼Magma smoked Cat sausage☼?
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: aka010101 on January 27, 2011, 03:51:02 pm
Quote
2.)
Spoilage could depend on the biome. Food would spoil much faster in a swamp than it would in a desert or on a glacier climate.
Also, different options of preservation might only be possible in certain climates.
I'm thinking of drying especially.

Now, i think this is a good idea, but i think it needs more qualifiers than that. For example, dried food WOULD spoil faster in a swamp climate, but there are other ways to preserve food, for example, maybe canned or pickled foods would do better in a humid climate, but not so well in a frozen one, ect.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Stove on January 29, 2011, 02:55:53 pm
In seems in my relative absence from the forums (university will do that) a thread on the alcohol industry has passed my notice. D:

Here are previous threads with ideas for the alcohol industry:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=42660.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=31231.0


Brewing shouldn't require fuel, or at least brewing beer and wine shouldn't. Having personally done both I can safely say that that you don't have to use fire. Sprirts should though, for the still.


Beer certainly does require heat. I would say any alcohol that requires water in Dwarf Fortress should require fuel.


Forgive me if it's already been mentioned in this thread, but a long time ago I suggested two separate reactions for alcoholic drinks:

1) Brewing- should be do-able in a kitchen if you have a barrel (and ingredients, water, etc.)
2) Distilled spirits- done in a still; you turn a brewed mash into high-alcohol spirits in a process that might require fuel.  To make things simpler, instead of having mash as a middle-product (this is not unthinkable when you realize how complicated soap making is...) you could simply have them turn brewed drinks into spirits at a ratio of say 3 barrels of the former to one barrel of the latter.  For instance, dwarven wine is brewed into dwarvish brandy, dwarven beer or ale brewed into whiskey, sunshine brewed into elvish cordial, etc. etc.

Just thought I would put that suggestion back in here...  ;)

Yes, I realize I could easily mod this in with custom reactions or something.   If nothing else, I hope there will at least be a distinction between spirits and brewed drinks.  Spirits could even be used in medicine!! :)


Having brewing take place in the kitchen is an interesting idea. The kitchen is where I make wine and mead, after all. But I would expect Dwarves to build workshops dedicated to brewing, what with their passion for booze. As I suggested in one of the previous threads, there should be separate Brewery and Still workshops. Also, I think I may have commented on this in a previous thread, but "sunshine" always struck me as being related to "moonshine" and therefore a distilled beverage. Sunberry brandy, basically.


How about booze coming in flavored variants?  In the real world almost all beers are flavored with hops, and before hops were used there were a variety of herbs and berries which were used.  Dwarven beer made with only cave wheat could be "sweet dwarven beer", cave wheat + cave hops = "dwarven beer", and so on.  Allowable flavors, their names and prices would (probably) have to be specified in the raws, rather than being randomly generated like food recipes.

Plus, dwarves could have a preference for for a type of booze and a particular flavor of that booze. "Urist McDrunkard like dwarven wine and especially likes bush quarry flavored dwarven wine".

The mixture of herbs (which actually sometimes contained hops) is called "gruit". The purpose of gruit was to add/balance flavour, preserve the beer, and clarify the beer. Hops were found to be the most effective at preserving beer. If nothing is added, the beer tends to have a cloying flavour and a very short shelf life before it turns sour/funky.



My thoughts on this are to expand liquor varieties. Adding lager and making ale a type of beer. Also hard liquor and fuel for all booze-making.

The lager/ale dichotomy is a modern concept (and lager is a modern beer). The definition of "ale" and its distinction from "beer" is a bit complicated, since it has changed throughout history.  Old Norse "öl" and Anglo-Saxon "ealu" (cognates of ale) were the catch-all terms for fermented malt drinks (in other words, used the same as we use "beer") while Old Norse "bjorr" and Anglo-Saxon "beór" (probably cognates of beer) referred to a stronger drink, most likely cider, possibly sweetened with honey. In 15th century England, ale was unhopped and beer was hopped. It didn't take long for brewers to start using hops in ale as well, however. I'm not sure what I would suggest for the use of "ale" and "beer" in Dwarf Fortress.

I would certainly like to see liquor varieties expanded though, particularly with different combinations of ingredients. I might put together a list of drinks, the ingredients they require, their properties (shelf-life and aging potential) and what the distilled spirit would be called.


Edit: Also; not all alcohol should require water. There are some very cheap, disgusting forms of alcohol that are not made with any water, just fermenting juices and a yeast of some sort usually. Such things should probably have a high chance to cause ill effects in whoever drinks them (nausea, unconsciousness, etc.), but they should be an option for producing booze for your dwarves when you're lacking other options.

Also, very poor quality brewing should potentially cause severely bad effects, like blindness. That occurs when producing liquor without disposing of the waste of it. While highly alcoholic, the first stuff that comes out of a still is also insanely poisonous and has to be tossed away once it's done coming out (what comes next is the actual drinkable liquor that's less likely to kill you unless you drink way, way too much). Stills should maybe also produce fumes (and too close to a major heat source, like a forge, said fumes could ignite, if one wants to be real mean about it; though even the heat of the still can itself cause a very large explosion if the fumes are too thick; proper ventilation is extremely important).

Trace quantities of methanol (which causes blindness) are normal in most alcohol production. Moonshine that caused blindness was not the result of being poorly made, but rather of being adultered with methanol. The fusel oils that come out at the beginning of distillation are unpleasant and popularly believed to cause bad hangovers, but they won't kill you any more than ethanol.

Also, wine is not cheap and disgusting. :P
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Jake on January 29, 2011, 04:20:17 pm
Regarding stoves and work surfaces etc. Wouldn't it also be a good idea to have an option to put those in individual quarters so that dwarves had the option of preparing their own food and hot drinks? Purchasing raw ingredients from the Head Chef noble could be cheaper, but dining out could provide a happy thought as a result.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Waparius on January 29, 2011, 10:10:25 pm
Regarding stoves and work surfaces etc. Wouldn't it also be a good idea to have an option to put those in individual quarters so that dwarves had the option of preparing their own food and hot drinks? Purchasing raw ingredients from the Head Chef noble could be cheaper, but dining out could provide a happy thought as a result.

Yes, though lazy dwarves should probably get an unhappy thought from having to do this themselves. Perhaps a "thrifty" or "hardworking" type dwarf would get an unhappy thought by contrast if they weren't able to do anything of the sort.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: aka010101 on January 29, 2011, 11:42:44 pm
All this talk of alcohol brings something to mind that currently does not exist, and to my knowledge hasn't been discussed ever: Mixed drinks.
Now, while as far as i know, they're a fairly recent invention, bear in mind that a society as dependent on booze as the dwarves, would probably develop them sooner. A practical use for them might be to stretch alcohol supplies, for example, Rum+fruit juice or water = grog. Which may really help a fortress low on brewable substances.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: TolyK on January 30, 2011, 01:24:58 am
All this talk of alcohol brings something to mind that currently does not exist, and to my knowledge hasn't been discussed ever: Mixed drinks.
Now, while as far as i know, they're a fairly recent invention, bear in mind that a society as dependent on booze as the dwarves, would probably develop them sooner. A practical use for them might be to stretch alcohol supplies, for example, Rum+fruit juice or water = grog. Which may really help a fortress low on brewable substances.
ding ding ding!
we've got a bright idea here!
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on January 30, 2011, 09:14:32 am
Around 100 they kept wine in clay jars and it became like wine concentrate so everybody mixed water with wine.  It's probably too complicated to implement, but it's an idea for more time period flavor.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Jake on January 30, 2011, 11:45:57 am
Around 100 they kept wine in clay jars and it became like wine concentrate so everybody mixed water with wine.  It's probably too complicated to implement, but it's an idea for more time period flavor.
Wouldn't be all that hard, given where we are with reactions at the moment; grog and small beer are certainly achievable in the current version, even if they'd be cheating a bit given the relative simplicity of making booze right now. And dwarves are going to start showing actual signs of intoxication in a future version, so having some relatively low-strength booze on hand might have advantages as well.
And speaking of which, religious prohibitions on certain food types should definitely extend to booze as well.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on January 30, 2011, 05:40:57 pm
Around 100 they kept wine in clay jars and it became like wine concentrate so everybody mixed water with wine.  It's probably too complicated to implement, but it's an idea for more time period flavor.
Wouldn't be all that hard, given where we are with reactions at the moment; grog and small beer are certainly achievable in the current version, even if they'd be cheating a bit given the relative simplicity of making booze right now. And dwarves are going to start showing actual signs of intoxication in a future version, so having some relatively low-strength booze on hand might have advantages as well.
And speaking of which, religious prohibitions on certain food types should definitely extend to booze as well.

You misunderstand; wine concentrate = juice concentrate out of wine-- it was undrinkable and quite potent everybody had their own levels they prefferedAnd they had preferred temperatures.  We're talking about enough decisions to have a lowered fps each time a dwarf twants wine.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: sockless on January 31, 2011, 03:13:48 am
Another thing: Pots, saucepans and other implements should be required for cooking, at least in Adventure mode.

It may make things more complex to need a pot (or whatever) in Fortress mode, but it's worth thinking about as a method of making it more difficult to prepare stews and roasts.

But you can cook over an open fire. And who goes adventuring with a giant pot? Tools shouldn't be compulsory for cooking, but they should make better food.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: vadia on January 31, 2011, 06:09:18 am
Another thing: Pots, saucepans and other implements should be required for cooking, at least in Adventure mode.

It may make things more complex to need a pot (or whatever) in Fortress mode, but it's worth thinking about as a method of making it more difficult to prepare stews and roasts.

But you can cook over an open fire. And who goes adventuring with a giant pot? Tools shouldn't be compulsory for cooking, but they should make better food.
Many people went exploring with little pots.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Mazonas on January 31, 2011, 11:50:20 am
Quote
Blood - Dwarves should be able to use blood as an ingredient when cooking. Very dwarfy!

Blood sausage!  Black pudding is a delicious and essential way to use up blood.  If we're having this though, we should have two other things;

Butchering should involve hanging the kill, firstly to drain the blood and secondly to allow meat to mature - certain meats, especially game, are much more palatable if they are hung for a few days.

Religious diets.  Dwarves that follow certain Gods should refuse to eat food contaminated with things that are the dwarfy equivalent of non-kosher or non-halal.  So a religious dwarf may refuse to eat blood sausage if their god does not allow blood consumption.  Another may insist on consuming blood for their God.  How far they are willing to go (ie, to starvation and death) should depend on strength of faith.  A fairly religious dwarf who eats a forbidden food rather than starve should get a negative mood because of it.

Quote
Storage and Preservation...

Yes, yes and yes!  In medieval times, if you weren't able to find some way to extend the shelf life of food you starved.  Smoking meat, drying vegetables, storing in oil or fat, salting... these are all simple, basic preservation techniques that we have used since before we even had a recorded history.  In that vein...

SUBSISTENCE FOODS
A dwarven caravan that embarks and runs out of food should not risk starvation unless it eats vermin, but should have to work harder.  Humans used to consume things like acorns; unpalatable and technically inedible, but if you roast the acorns, crush them, pour the crush acorn pulp into a cloth bag and let it sit in a current of water such as a stream for a day or two until the tannin is washed out, you can then mix it with a little honey, or water, or milk and heat it to make a sort of acorn porridge/mash.

Although... preserved foods are not fuel-less.  Making jam, chutney or canning and preserving food requires cooking.  You don't know how bad vinegar is until you're forced out of the house while a pot of onion and chilli chutney on the hob fills the house with eye-stinging vinegar steam.

Quote
Communal Cooking - Hot meals prepared by cooks to be ready-to-eat at a communal serving area. When a dwarf gets hungry, they come to the dining hall and take a serving of "the meal of the day". Players could keep this area stocked with meals using the Make Hot Meal option. The meal queue would be reduced by dwarves taking meals from it and spoilage. When the economy kicks in, this could expand to the Tavern concept.

We will need dwarves to either make meals much slower to prevent overcooking and wastage, or make dorfs use "leftovers" to make a low-quality but nutritious meal such as bubble and squeak.  In fact, dorfs should automatically prefer to include meal leftovers in cooking if there are any before using fresh ingredients.  So bubble and squeak, soups made from leftover roasts, curries made from cold meats, bread and butter pudding, bread soups...

It might actually be easier to have, instead of a kitchen workshop, more of a canteen.  Dorf cooks serve up dishes to order and remain in the canteen workshop continuously, leaving only at need.  A badly managed fortress could cause bad moods when there are no dorfs set to cook currently at work in the canteen, resulting in dorfs either going hungry or making a makeshift meal (ir, making a quick sandwich and grabbing a plate of cold leftovers instead od getting a fresh dinner).  Fortress could have an option for "all dorfs cook" or "only chefs cook", so that people who like to make less workhouse style fortresses can still have options for them.

Dorf Families.  Dorf families should eat together - go to the canteen at the same time and, where food hall layout and crowding allows, should sit adjacent to each other to eat.  Unless Toady brings in some sort of schooling option, in which case all dorf childen should be taken to the canteen at the same time by whatever dorf adult is in charge of them to eat together.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on February 01, 2011, 01:25:19 pm
I see that the idea of dwarves cooking themselves has come up a couple more times. I'll expand the firepit idea to include the simplest possible type of kitchen: the hearth. Fortress mode players could choose to build one in every dwarven quarters and turn cooking on for all of them to let them cook their own meals.
Small beer has come up a couple of times and definitely needs to be fit into the op. I thinking it will go best in the mixed drinks part of the thread since drink mixing with beer would be how we could fit less intoxicating drinks like grog and such. Is small beer a brew with less original alcohol content or is it watered down after brewing? (on my phone so less easy to look these thing up at the moment.)
I'll update the main thread soon with a bunch of these updates, including that religious prohibitions should extend to drinks as well.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: noob on February 02, 2011, 03:04:34 am
magma ovens that could possibly burn food. (the magma heats up the oven, not the dwarf throws mushrooms into the magma)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: NW_Kohaku on April 28, 2011, 12:53:52 pm
Alright, this was something from another thread, but there's no reason not to revive this thread to talk about this...

The problem I have with this thread isn't so much what is being discussed, but the format of the megathread, itself. 

AngleWyrm went to the trouble of including links to all the threads that came before.  This is something that should be done in each of the examples in the first post.  The point is that you need to preserve the argument for (and against) the suggestions, not just a quick blurb on what you have boiled the suggestions themselves down to. 

The suggestions themselves are almost meaningless without their arguments.  They only have meaning when they are part of a cohesive argument for their function, and when they are capable of answering the arguments against them.

Simply listing "this was suggested once, somewhere" isn't really doing anything but telling people that someone, somewhere thought that was a good idea - you need to link to where, exactly, the argument for and against it took place, so that those arguments are actually readable.  Otherwise, you're just recreating the problem of posting without searching - you raise a topic, while ignoring the arguments and discussion that came before.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: JohnnyDigs on April 28, 2011, 08:53:53 pm
I don't know if this was suggested yet, but seeing as how milk is in the game you should be able to make it into booze too.

The mongols are able to do this:
http://www.mongolfood.info/en/recipes/mongol-arkhi.html
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on April 28, 2011, 10:20:18 pm
Alright, this was something from another thread, but there's no reason not to revive this thread to talk about this...

The problem I have with this thread isn't so much what is being discussed, but the format of the megathread, itself. 

AngleWyrm went to the trouble of including links to all the threads that came before.  This is something that should be done in each of the examples in the first post.  The point is that you need to preserve the argument for (and against) the suggestions, not just a quick blurb on what you have boiled the suggestions themselves down to. 

The suggestions themselves are almost meaningless without their arguments.  They only have meaning when they are part of a cohesive argument for their function, and when they are capable of answering the arguments against them.

Simply listing "this was suggested once, somewhere" isn't really doing anything but telling people that someone, somewhere thought that was a good idea - you need to link to where, exactly, the argument for and against it took place, so that those arguments are actually readable.  Otherwise, you're just recreating the problem of posting without searching - you raise a topic, while ignoring the arguments and discussion that came before.

Many (perhaps even the majority) of the suggestions that are listed at this point actually originated in this thread.

Other than whether brewing should require water or not, I haven't seen any significant opposition to any of the suggestions that have been added to the list.

Ultimately, like yourself, I've had to make decisions on what items I feel fit the overall feel of DF and which options fit the best together. I still don't really like the idea of dwarves cooking for themselves very much, but it came up so often that I found a way to make it work. And honestly the result is probably better for it.

Anglewyrm's response containing previous cooking threads was (and is) extremely useful and I still feel like a fool for chastising him/her on it. As for linking, most of those threads are nebulous, and arguments include multiple features at once. If you want to do the legwork of figuring out exactly where the arguments for various features took place, be my guest, but I don't have the time.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: NW_Kohaku on April 28, 2011, 10:27:26 pm
Many (perhaps even the majority) of the suggestions that are listed at this point actually originated in this thread.

Even if it was from "within the thread", try to link to the post where the suggestion originates.  The whole purpose of a Megathread is to organize the data for the convenience of the reader, so putting links to all the salient points of discussion for the reader in one single page is the best way to centralize the argument.

Jiri Petru did this in his Interface with Sparkles thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34949.0), and it organizes all the suggestions by type, and gives a link to where in the thread you should read about each one. 
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: thunktone on June 06, 2011, 01:32:39 pm
Glad I found this thread as I was about to repost a bunch of stuff from it. I still wound up with a wall of text after reading through the ideas here so I've broken it down with spoiler tags. There aren't any real spoilers here though, just a couple of bits that might spoil your appetite  :P.

Distilling

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Cooking with blood and intestines (Skip this if you're squeamish)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dwarfy spices

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Meat preservation and pickling (not for the squeamish)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Trade in salt

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Egg preservation

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Centre of a family home

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Seasonality

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Cheesy by-products

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Smoking

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Barrels

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Malt

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Small Beer

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Leavening

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


Around 100 they kept wine in clay jars and it became like wine concentrate so everybody mixed water with wine.

Not everybody. The Romans noted the "barbarity" of the Gauls who drank their wine undiluted and in large quantities. Also drinks get concentrated in wooden barrels too. In Scotland they say the missing liquid from whiskey maturation has been "lost to the fairies", or something like that.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: clockwork on June 06, 2011, 06:35:08 pm
Excuse me if it's already been said, but, a lot of this ties in with farming, I mean, if you even wanted something like, "The harvest for cave wheat this season was terrible" you'd need something along the lines of nutritional tracking.That's just my 2 cents. A lot of the ideas are great though, I commend you for your good effort on organizing them.

Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: tHe_silent_H on June 07, 2011, 07:12:06 am
Food poisining should be a posibiltiy(treatble by vomiting or medical dwarfs) maybe on eating raw meat, or food near/past it's experation date(dwarves eating spoiled food cus it's either that or vermin)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: harborpirate on June 07, 2011, 11:12:26 pm
Glad I found this thread as I was about to repost a bunch of stuff from it. I still wound up with a wall of text after reading through the ideas here so I've broken it down with spoiler tags. There aren't any real spoilers here though, just a couple of bits that might spoil your appetite  :P.

Thanks for taking the time to find the thread!

I've updated the main page with notes on the Salt Trade (a huge oversight), and I'm sure I'll be grabbing a bunch more items from your post as well.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: jwest23 on July 26, 2011, 05:17:29 pm
Since fermentation is mentioned in the first post, one of those little things that bug me is that we have Dwarven Ale and Dwarven Beer.  Dwarven Beer bugs me, because ale is a beer.  "Dwarven Lager" would have probably been a better choice.  Most beers fall into one of these two major categories, ales and lagers.

A greatly oversimplified view of these categories is that lagers are typically fermented in colder temperatures and ales in warmer temperatures.  So, if fermentation is to be added I'd like to see where the fermentation is done be a part of the style of beer.  When the fermentation is done underground away from magma, for example, it might end up a lager.  When the fermentation is done underground on a magma-heated floor, it might end up an ale.

Again, this is very much a simplified view of the differences between ales and lagers.  You could get into different strains of yeast or how those strains are sourced, for example, and how they affect the outcome.  This might be a nice middle ground, though, for slightly more realism without unabashed beer-geekery.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Fidna on July 26, 2011, 06:37:42 pm
I'm pretty sure whiskey is post 1400

Whiskey is older. The first direct mention of whiskey (as aqua vitae, which was generically applied to many distilled drinks, and whiskey itself is from a Gaelic transliteration of the Latin aqua vitae) is from 1405, when an Irish chief drank himself to death on it, but the first definable production is earlier, with monastery stills having been found to have been distilling barley beer. It was probably used for medicine initially. However, initially whiskey was not aged for a particular period. It was drank shortly after it was done and wasn't watered down. As such, whiskey made in the earlier fashion wasn't quite what people might anticipate now, but it was the first whiskey, and it would be within period. It's important to keep in mind distilling techniques originally spread as a technique for making medicines though.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: sockless on July 28, 2011, 11:53:48 pm
The bit of whiskey that evaporates is called the "angels share". It actually makes the whiskey less alcoholic as well I believe, as more alcohol than water evaporates.

The traditional difference between beer and ale was that ale didn't contain hops, instead it used other bitter herbs.

Distilled alcohol doesn't make gin, gin is grain alcohol which is redistilled with juniper berries and other herbs to give it flavour.

You might want to add some stuff about salt pits and making sea salt to the list. Sea salt varies in quality however, in medieval times, cheap salt was often green or black in colour due to impurities. You might want to add seaweed into the list of new ingredients as well.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: frodo0800 on July 29, 2011, 06:04:22 am
you should include on the first post the idea of large stationary barrels,even if booze is still an item.
and dwarfs could keep meat and organs fresh by adding salt to them,this way they can have Jerky or charqui
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Jake on July 29, 2011, 04:26:08 pm
Don't think this has been mentioned yet, so what about tea or coffee as an alternative to alcohol for making water more palateable and safer to drink? Hot drinks could also provide a small happy thought in cold weather, and slow the onset of hypothermia for dwarves working outside for long periods.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: sockless on July 29, 2011, 07:34:56 pm
A hypothermia mechanic would have to be added. But I think that adding hot drinks would be a good addition, but dwarves don't seem to have much interest in drink non-alcoholic beverages, I guess it could be a supplement, or they might just all drink Irish Coffee!

Oh, and we have honey now, so that can be crossed off, so can oil and milk.

On aging: storing things in metal barrels doesn't lower quality, a lot of booze these days is made and stored in vats these days (think kegs). Also, maybe it could be made so that different woods impart a different flavour on the contents, it also depends on what's been stored in the barrel before. Aging also depends on where you store it, most things age better in cool places.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Vattic on July 30, 2011, 10:16:02 am
Drying's been mentioned but it's not in the OP (except candied fruits and smoked meats are a kind of drying). I mention it again because it's one of the oldest forms of preservation. You can dry lots of different types of food: fruit (often comes with a name change), mushrooms, meat, fish, and likely others. You can even sundry foods.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Jake on July 31, 2011, 02:15:02 pm
A hypothermia mechanic would have to be added. But I think that adding hot drinks would be a good addition, but dwarves don't seem to have much interest in drink non-alcoholic beverages, I guess it could be a supplement, or they might just all drink Irish Coffee!
Everyone preferred beer or wine to water in those days, as it was less likely to make you shit uncontrollably until you died of dehydration, but even back then it was known that excessive alcohol consumption wasn't a brilliant idea either. Beer and wine are also rather time-consumping and complicated to make compared to coffee or tea, which require only boiling water and preferably some way of filtering the leaves or grounds out of whatever you're serving the beverage in. Lastly, there are plans to expand religious affiliations to include forbidding certain foodstuffs; it's not unlikely that alcoholic beverages will be included in that.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: thunktone on August 13, 2011, 04:48:19 am
Since fermentation is mentioned in the first post, one of those little things that bug me is that we have Dwarven Ale and Dwarven Beer.  Dwarven Beer bugs me, because ale is a beer.  "Dwarven Lager" would have probably been a better choice.  Most beers fall into one of these two major categories, ales and lagers.

A greatly oversimplified view of these categories is that lagers are typically fermented in colder temperatures and ales in warmer temperatures.  So, if fermentation is to be added I'd like to see where the fermentation is done be a part of the style of beer.  When the fermentation is done underground away from magma, for example, it might end up a lager.  When the fermentation is done underground on a magma-heated floor, it might end up an ale.

Again, this is very much a simplified view of the differences between ales and lagers.  You could get into different strains of yeast or how those strains are sourced, for example, and how they affect the outcome.  This might be a nice middle ground, though, for slightly more realism without unabashed beer-geekery.

The two types of beer common before lager were Ale and Bitter. Bitter tended to have more gruit (bitter herbs or bark) than ale. Ale also tends to be stronger than bitter. Nowadays there are many categories of beer and it might be fun to give dwarfs some of these. There is lager, which is made with a bottom-fermenting strain of yeast. I don't know where you're coming from with the temperature of fermentation but lager is traditionally stored in cool cellars after primary fermentation. Ale and Bitter are certainly more common in Britain than in Spain or Italy for example.

There is stout which is made with a darker roasted malt than other beers, traditionally in areas without enough acidity in the water supply (roasting malt increases acidity). Porter is a type of stout, and Baltic porter is a lager made with the same dark roast. I'm not sure how mild is made but it is quite different to the others. Wheat beer and white beer are made with wheat, millet beer with millet (mainly in africa). A lot of modern lagers have malted or unmalted rice mixed with the barley, which makes quite a different drink though still called lager. Trappist ales are very different from the English styles as they tend to be stronger and quite syrupy. The less said about fruit beers and Christmas ale the better.

I'm pretty sure whiskey is post 1400

Whiskey is older. The first direct mention of whiskey (as aqua vitae...) is from 1405...

It may be nitpicking but aqua vitae is really nothing like whisky. The word whisky was used for various moonshines in Ireland and Scotland before being applied to the modern drink but that doesn't make it the same thing. What we now call whisky is matured in wooden barrels, by most definitions for at least 4 years. These barrels have usually been used to store other drinks first. America probably has as much claim to modern whisky as Ireland or Scotland as it was colonialism that made a lot of second hand barrels available.

P.S. I think Aqua Vitae was invented by the Persians or Arabs. Also I have no objection to post 1400 beverages being in the game myself. These are dwarves after all.

Distilled alcohol doesn't make gin, gin is grain alcohol which is redistilled with juniper berries and other herbs to give it flavour.

Traditional gin is just made with juniper berries, usually macerated in the alcohol. Spiced gin is a different, more recent, drink. Passing distillation vapours over flavourings in the still is even more recent I believe. Sloe gin was traditionally made with blackthorn fruit instead of juniper, though most people today make it with spiced gin (a real shame, but their loss). And yes, grain alcohol was usually called gin too. It was sometimes referred to as planters gin.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Agorp Stronden on August 21, 2011, 01:13:05 pm
I would just like to suggest that a new building be created that is the PANTRY! A small, maybe even 3X3 area building that holds lots of food. Much more space economical than throwing your food on the floor.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: chuckthegr8 on August 21, 2011, 01:28:33 pm
How about we just build shelves that can hold 5 Barrels/5 Bins each. Build them in your stockpile and stack them up!
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: Fidna on August 21, 2011, 04:09:12 pm
I'm pretty sure whiskey is post 1400

Whiskey is older. The first direct mention of whiskey (as aqua vitae...) is from 1405...

It may be nitpicking but aqua vitae is really nothing like whisky. The word whisky was used for various moonshines in Ireland and Scotland before being applied to the modern drink but that doesn't make it the same thing. What we now call whisky is matured in wooden barrels, by most definitions for at least 4 years. These barrels have usually been used to store other drinks first. America probably has as much claim to modern whisky as Ireland or Scotland as it was colonialism that made a lot of second hand barrels available.

P.S. I think Aqua Vitae was invented by the Persians or Arabs. Also I have no objection to post 1400 beverages being in the game myself. These are dwarves after all.

Aqua vitae in texts in Ireland and Scotland refers directly to whiskey. It is an entirely diferent beverage than what you're thinking of; it was actually a catch-all term in a lot of languages for any distilled alcohol.

However, the name whiskey comes from 'uisce beatha' or 'uisge beatha', which is just the Middle Gaelic rendering of 'aqua vitae', and still means 'water of life'. Whiskey's ultimate meaning is simply 'water', since it was just anglicizing 'uisce'. Completely different beverage than other aqua vitaes; eaux de vie, for example, French fruit brandy. Since almost everything was being written in Latin though, they translated phrases like that in official texts to the Latin 'aqua vitae', since it all meant 'water of life'. It was just any distilled alcohol at all, regardless of what the beverage was made of, tasted like, etc.

We know what the Irish and Scots had for their aqua vitae because they told us. It was essentially distilled barley beer. With the inability to produce the large amounts of wine needed for communion in church, and as a medicinal tincture, monks began distilling the excess malted barley beer they made in big copper stills. That's whiskey. Primitive whiskey, but whiskey. It wasn't aged, it was obscenely strong, tasted poor, but it was whiskey. Plus copper stills from before written record of its existence clearly show the residues of the distilling of the barley drink used to make the first whiskeys, which precede 1400 by a couple centuries (like one found at Cong). It's definitely within time frame, it's just whiskey within the time frame would be incredibly potent (in fact, it was apparently dangerous, given the first written reference is a guy dying from drinking too much) and not really fit for most people to consume unless they're extremely hardy individuals. ...So, dwarves.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: peskyninja on August 21, 2011, 04:31:19 pm
{IGNORE}
nothing to do with cooking or brewing


mushrooms should need some kind of organic matter to grow,not only soil,aomething like a log or paper.


{IGNORE}
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: chuckthegr8 on August 28, 2011, 07:47:38 pm
What if we have an option to 'Butcher in Parts' instead of 'Butcher for Meat'. What will happen is that the meat you usually get is reduced somewhat, to be parts called 'Chicken Drumsticks' 'Pork Ribs' or maybe 'Turkey Wings'. There will also be no bones or skulls. The good part is that these parts, when cooked, will have their own quality depending on the butcher added to the quality by the cook, so Masterwork<Masterwork Beef Ribs>Roast is possible. Also, without cooking Beef Thighs will satisfy both a lover of Cow meat as well as someone hankering specifically after Beef Thighs. (there should be a mechanism that limits the perferability of certain body parts)
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: sockless on August 29, 2011, 12:15:04 am
We should change the system so that we just don't get bones or meat. Instead we get body parts, like chicken wings in your example, as well as all the other bits. Then when they get cooked, we get bones.
Title: Re: Cooking and Brewing Diversity: the Food and Drink Megathread
Post by: chuckthegr8 on August 29, 2011, 05:11:37 pm
Yeah, but cooked bones aren't exactly the best for crafting...Not that I know of that short of stuff. ;)