While the thread is near the top, I have been looking at the problem from a slightly lower level.
Jiri Petrew has covered the economics and specialization of cooking well enough that I do not feel the need to add much, beyond my own personal preference for the “communal cooking” mess hall option (although that might have something to do with the fact that, under the current interface, it is really the only workable one). I will focus instead on recipes and reactions: more details on the many possible methods of preservation that would probably be available at the tech level of Dwarf Fortress, and more detailed descriptions of the individual prepared meals, along with how to implement the reactions to make all of them. This will be a long one, so I will use spoiler tags to condense it into manageable sections.
Further reading:
Cooking techniques other than “mincing” and
A Gastronomic Adventure Into DF.
Many preservation techniques call for fermentation, which is much closer to real life with the option of
long term unattended reactions.
To start off, I will review the methods of preserving food, gathering as many as possible into one place for later reference.
Food TypesTo avoid confusion, here is a list of food types, to clarify terms used in subsequent sections.
Plants cluster:Plants can be grown in prepared fields, or collected from the wild. Like animals, plants have different parts, although domesticated plants are usually grown for only one or two per species. Plants are the overwhelming majority of the food I produce in my forts, which is appropriate to the technology level: a dwarven fortress is inherently a settled community, and those historically got most of their food by farming. Those that used animals as their primary source of food, whether by hunting wild herds or driving tame ones, historically roamed over very large territories.
1. Fruit: Culinary fruit, or “sweet fruit,” including most brewable fruits (whether from shrubs or trees), as well as citrus. Usually fairly perishable, although keeping it in a cool root cellar can help. Fermenting into the respective wine or cider helps a lot more.
2. Squashes: Most other “fruit” plant growths, including squash, cucumber, tomato, and peppers. While botanical fruits, these tend to be lower in both sugar and acid content than the sweet fruits, which affects their culinary properties (they are culinary vegetables), and which preservation options work well. With three exceptions (the tomato, tomatillo, and artichoke), these cannot be brewed into an alcoholic drink, the primary method of long-term preservation for the sweet fruits.
3. Leaf vegetables: Edible leaves such as lettuce and cabbage. This also includes flavoring “herbs” like mint. I am also lumping in edible stems like celery and asparagus. These tend to be fairly perishable and difficult to preserve. One prominent exception is cabbage, which apparently pickles well under brine, producing sauerkraut. Rhubarb might make a jam. Most spices dry relatively well.
4. Root vegetables: Tubers, bulbs, etc. including potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, and ginger. Can usually keep in a root cellar for several months, but the majority are tricky to preserve beyond that. Some dry well, particularly the spices. Root vegetables are also particularly resistant to withering in the fields, and historically have been left for continuous harvesting over the winter (“whole livestock” preservation method).
5. Grains: Most seeds eaten for food, including tree nuts. As a rule, seeds store fine at room temperature, as long as they are kept intact and reasonably dry. The main threat is vermin, not rot. Bread is covered in its own section, under “Prepared Meals.”
> Plants that are used for flour really should be traded in whole seed form, which is a threshing reaction that the current game ignores. Flour has a much shorter shelf life than the whole seeds.
6. Oil: Usually pressed out of certain seeds (with the exception of olive oil, which is pressed from fruit). Many types are shelf-stable for several years at room temperature; flax seed oil, also called linseed oil, is a prominent exception due to the way it hardens (a property which supports its famous use in paints).
> Processing seeds for oil also produces a press cake, which is usually edible and can probably be treated as a flour. I’m not sure where olive pomace should go.
Many animals are used for food. The majority is “butchering returns,” collected when the animal is slaughtered, but some can be collected periodically from the live animal.
1. Meat: The item called “meat,” whether from land animals or butchered fish (comes from the muscle tissue layer). Very perishable in the raw state; usually preserved by some form of drying (smoking or salting).
2. Fish: Seafood cleaned at the fishery. Also perishable, but usually easy to preserve. Similar preservation properties to meat (culinary properties are a bit more distinct, and merge with those of larger fish processed at the butcher shop), so many of my comments below will treat fish as a subtype within meat, rather than mention fish separately.
3. Organs: Lung, liver, tripe, kidneys, etc. Also perishable; often somewhat more difficult to preserve than meat.
> Heart is mostly muscle, so it should take most meat preservation techniques. Most other organs probably won’t, though.
> Intestines (and sometimes stomach/tripe) are the frequent choice for sausage casings, and some recipes do involve salting or smoking the sausage to give it a long shelf life. These have generally fallen out of favor on Earth with the easy availability of refrigeration, but they do exist.
> I have been told that the first things most carnivores go after are the liver and the stomach, which may suggest that they are the most perishable parts. Next are probably the brain and lungs.
> Brain has its uses in
certain tanning techniques. There is not much advantage to this process in the current game, since
the wide range of ingredients involved in vegetable tanning is not implemented either. Brain can also be eaten, but in modern times this is known as the vector of certain diseases. I don’t know what preservation techniques work on brain prepared for eating, although buckskin tanning involves smoking.
4. Fat: Most uses seem to actually call for tallow, which is refined fat with most of the other components (from the animal’s fat tissue layer) cooked out. Tallow is the preserved form, and it doesn’t really preserve further. Unfortunately, the information I have managed to find on its shelf life at room temperature seems to assume modern technology (inert atmospheres and airtight containers). I don’t know how long tallow keeps at room temperature with DF (roughly Roman to medieval) technology.
5. Milk: Raw milk is very perishable. There are several preservation options, covered in their own section (“Cheese and other dairy products”).
6. Blood: Blood can be collected in a watertight container as the animal is butchered. If the animal produces edible meat when butchered, its blood should be edible as well. Like milk, blood contains a broad range of nutrients in simple forms, and is highly perishable as a result. There probably are methods of preserving it, but I have not managed to do much research on the subject.
> Like milk, blood can be collected intermittently from the live animal (and, unlike milk, can be collected from male animals, and even birds and reptiles).
7. Eggs: Eggs have a similar nutritional profile to meat, but significantly different culinary properties. Most of these stem from the fact that raw eggs are liquid, which affects how they mix into other components of a prepared meal.
> Eggs have a shell, and, as long as the outer cuticle remains intact, the egg will have a shelf life at room temperature at least as long as the incubation period (the normal time between laying the egg and hatching the embryo). Preserving them beyond this is tricky, although I have read about pickled eggs. Note the cuticle is significantly less durable than the bony shell, and washing the egg frequently breaks the cuticle, providing paths for fungi and bacteria to enter. My research indicates that regulations in the EU leverage this, but regulations in the US call for washing to remove other things on the shell, and assume refrigeration to control the microbes. DF can go the EU route, or simply treat them as highly perishable, to be cooked and consumed quickly.
> All of this is specifically about bird eggs. Reptile eggs are probably similar enough to go in the same category, although I have read that many reptile eggs do not set up during cooking the way chicken and goose do.
> Roe (most seafood eggs) is quite different from bird eggs, and treated here as an organ. Most species can be preserved with salt (salt curing or brine pickling).
8. Bones: Bones don’t usually count for much in calories, but some recipes for stock do call for bones, which are cooked in water to leach out the flavor. Afterward, it is easier to remove meat, cartilage, and so forth that had been stuck to the bones, although I do not know how suitable boiled bones still are for bone carving uses.
> Marrow might also be worth considering. Other than its location (which affects the procedures and difficulty of retrieving it), it can probably be treated as an organ for most purposes. Marrow appears to not be implemented in the current game (creature templates should mention it right after bone, close to where cartilage is now).
There are a lot of different options for preserving food. Each option works better on some food types than others.
0. Whole livestock: “Keep the animal alive, so its own immune system keeps the meat fresh, and butcher it just before eating.”
This only works with tame animals (wild ones are hard to keep contained), and they need a reliable supply of food.
> Jiri Petrew expressed the view that fresh meat will usually be traded in livestock form, and that it is likely to be relatively expensive. I do agree that meat (at least of domestic species) will usually be traded in the form of living animals, but I tend to disagree with the expensive part. Livestock probably aren’t currently as expensive as they should be (a barrel of flour bags can buy several animals, especially if the bags are dyed), but we as players are working with the budget of a whole village, not just a family, so purchasing a small herd should be within our means most of the time.
> The distance livestock can be traded depends on the terrain of the route: if it is over areas that allow the animals to graze or browse, they can be driven extremely long distances. If food for the animals needs to be carried as well (carnivores all the time, herbivores in ocean, desert, etc.), it gets harder.
> Implementing this in the game will require animals owned by the caravan to be driven or guided (preferably several animals by one caravan member), and drop the current practice of carrying domestic animals in cages (although cages do make sense for wild animals and trained arena animals). Caged herbivores can be fed by caravan members cutting vegetation for them along the way, with the same terrain restrictions as grazing.
> I don’t know how distinct “importing for meat” and “importing for breeding stock” should be.
B. A variant on the theme of “whole livestock” does work for root vegetables, but not for most other plant foods. Technically, the relevant point is not the root part, but the plant as a whole being biennial or perennial (and even then, it doesn’t work for fruit or squash; seeds are harder to call).
> Note that most root vegetable crops are biennial, and consume the calories stored in the root over the second year to produce seeds. A given plant will not provide both. The main exception is potatoes, which are perennial, and produce several tubers per plant as a way of propagating themselves. Neither of these effects is implemented in the current game.
Most food items spoil more quickly while warm. Therefore, storing food in a place that is reliably less warm will make it last longer.
> The game apparently does track temperature and heat flow, but it does not display this information to the player. Proper implementation of cooling as a preservation method will require this information to be displayed, so cold rooms can be positioned and designed correctly.
1. Root cellars: “Store food away from the heat of the day. With a bit more work, it can even be kept away from the heat of the summer.”
Root cellars rely on the “thermal mass” of the surrounding soil (or occasionally rock) to control temperature swings. One z-level below ground is probably sufficient to absorb temperature swings over at least one day, protecting food stored in the room from the higher temperatures of mid-day and afternoon. Three or four z-levels will likely be sufficient to absorb seasonal variations: the room will be nearly constant at the yearly average temperature.
> Note that “the yearly average temperature” can still be high enough to be problematic in some climates. Tropical (Hot) and subtropical (Warm) climates don’t have a winter to provide a low swing. This leaves only daily temperature swings to work with. That can still be significant, and some molecules are specifically degraded by light, more than heat, but such root cellars are still not nearly as effective as those in colder climates.
> Dwarves mostly live underground, so storing food underground is natural for them. Normal dwarven food stockpiles inherently provide a root cellar effect, especially if located a respectable distance from the entrance and anything that requires a fire.
> The root cellar is mostly used for root vegetables (hence the name), fruits, and squashes (but not too close to each other: one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, and even a good apple causes problems for potatoes). Limited effectiveness (unless supplementing other preservation techniques) for meat, organs, and leaf vegetables. Usually redundant for grains and oil. I don’t know about tallow.
“Store the food in a box with ice at the top, which will keep it colder.”
Ice boxes (and ice closets) will not work in the current game, since
latent heat of fusion is not modeled: water currently has a heat of fusion of zero, which is what allows ponds to freeze and melt instantaneously. If heat of fusion were mentioned in the raws, it should be very close to the melting point, making its absence easy to check.
> An ice box generally works well on the same categories of food as a root cellar. It is less dependent on climate.
> Depending on the ratio of ice to food, some of the food might freeze, which damages most plant-based foods but extends the shelf life of most meats and organs. Freezing plants in a way that will have them relatively fresh after they thaw is possible, but the methods used on Earth usually involve liquid nitrogen, so I assume that it is beyond the tech level of DF.
> In climates that feature periodic freezing, ice can be harvested locally and stored in an insulated ice closet for use during the summer. This is even easier in permanently frozen climates like glaciers. If liquid water is also available, it can be poured on snow to make denser ice.
> Ice can be a viable export good, provided that insulation (or sheer mass) is sufficient to keep a worthwhile amount of it frozen during the journey. For best results, an entire wagon should be dedicated to ice and insulation, and filled as completely as possible. Merchants carry ice in huge lots or not at all.
A. On smaller scales, an ice box would be a furniture item, taking up (probably) one tile. Since it is not designed to be moved (or at least should be moved only while empty), total capacity (food plus ice) should be at least as large as the largest mobile container in the game, which is a minecart (and this is several times the size of a barrel, so the cabinets will consolidate stockpile space even without ice). As a food container, an ice box should be able to be placed on a food stockpile, and may demand such placement.
> Quality of furniture ice boxes may affect how long a given block of ice lasts (better sealing of the container, better placement of insulation layers, etc.).
> Even when the box has ice, food inside still has a shelf life, due to problems like
freezer burn. Given how infrequently dwarves eat, I don’t know what the shelf life of even raw foods should be to make sense, let alone how much an ice box should extend it.
> Ice boxes only took off after the industrial revolution, but that was due to improved transportation making ice supplies more reliable, not because the concept is beyond DF technology. There is apparently evidence of ice houses (or at least written orders for them to be built) before 1000 BC.
> As an inherent aspect of operations, ice boxes provide a supply of freshly melted water. If the water source that the ice froze from was drinkable, the melted ice will be as well.
> Nether-cap wood has a fixed temperature of 32 °F due to a mysterious process. Containers made of it will have most of the same effects as ice, and are much more portable and long-lasting. They would be extremely valuable for export, especially to humans (elves have their ethical complaints about killing trees). Complete storage rooms of nether-cap boards might also be an option.
B. On larger scales, ice can be put in a room floored with grates to allow the chilled air to flow to the food stockpile below (some solid floors may be useful to contain melted water). Storing ice for smaller ice boxes (an
ice house, rather than a cold closet) would replace the food stockpile with more ice.
> Additional levels of cold storage should be possible, again using grates on intermediate z-levels to allow flow of chilled air. The bottom floor should be mostly solid, but a properly designed drain for the melted water can significantly improve performance and efficiency (details in “Evaporative Refrigerator,” part C).
> To restrict heat flow, the complete cold room should have a minimum surface area for its volume. In theory, this is a sphere, but in the case of an ice closet there is a benefit to a constant vertical footprint for flow of chilled air. This means a cylinder, although a cube will be easier to designate (the cylinder version should still have a height roughly equal to its diameter, although individual tiles in DF are apparently not cubes).
> The cold room will benefit from insulation. Rock and brick are built in thick walls with high thermal mass, which damps out highly variable temperatures, but this is not the same as restricting heat flow into a consistently cold area (or away from a consistently hot one). Straw is a common choice in real life, as is sawdust (although neither is implemented in DF), although both are susceptible to rot in damp conditions.
> For best results, the rooms should be accessed by a staircase going at least as high as the top ice level, to restrict the flow of chilled air out of the stockpile and into the hallway. Furniture ice boxes should likewise be accessed mainly from the top, but that is less visible to the player.
“Humans sweat to cool off, and a porous container can leak to similar effect.”
Sometimes called a
pot-in-pot refrigerator, this device relies on evaporation to keep the contents cool. It only works in dry climates, where water can evaporate rapidly enough to have a worthwhile cooling effect (it requires a low
wet bulb temperature to work).
> Like the icebox, this device will not work in the current game, since
heat of vaporization is not modeled, or even mentioned in the raws (although apparently humidity is modeled, as part of the weather simulator).
> The pot-in-pot refrigerator uses two clay pots, with one placed inside the other. The inner pot contains the food (or occasionally other items) to be cooled, and can be (but is not always) glazed. The outer pot is not glazed. The space between the pots is filled with water, and often sand to keep the inner pot from floating.
> Since the outer pot is not glazed, water from the gap can trickle to its outer surface. Evaporating water at that location provides a cooling effect, and this draws heat from the contents. Since the coldest point is a layer of humidified air at the outer surface of the pot, the evaporative refrigerator cools the space it is in as an inherent aspect of its operation. This is not necessarily waste (the room is typically quite warm as well), but it does increase operating costs.
> The evaporative refrigerator consumes water for cooling, and this must be replenished periodically. If the inner pot is glazed, the water will not enter it, so the supply does not need to be drinkable (salt water will work).
> The cooling effect can be enhanced with active air flow, which can be provided by mechanical fans, or by workers.
B. Like the ice box, the evaporative refrigerator has a room cooling analogue. Water is typically delivered by a
qanat (a type of aqueduct) and a chimney draws warm air from the top of the building. This in turn draws air up from the air shaft of the qanat (which doubles as a water well), where air has been cooled by the water in the channel. This system is run entirely by buoyancy effects, solar power, and wind power, and does not need any mechanical assistance.
> Storing food near the building’s inlet for cooled air from the underground canal will provide a lower-maintenance option to replace the double pot refrigerator. This option can also supplement it: air flow is automatic, and, since the incoming air has already absorbed a significant amount of water vapor, water loss from the outer pot is slowed. Effectiveness is not decreased, since the lower limit to temperature is the wet bulb temperature in either case.
C. Ice can also be used as the cold point. For best results, engineering should direct the melted water to meet the input air first, so the air is already cold before it reaches the ice (a counter-current exchange process).
> As in the basic canal version, evaporation from the underground water supply cools the incoming air. In addition, freshly melted water is not much warmer than the ice, so simple heat transfer from the cold water provides additional cooling, and can cool the incoming air below its wet bulb temperature. Cooling the input air to just above the temperature of the ice minimizes distillation on the ice surface (condensing water would deposit its heat on the ice, melting some of it).
> Since melted water can cool incoming air below its wet bulb temperature, this version of the system does not need a dry input air stream. It will work in humid climates. The aqueduct is also less critical, although it does help by cooling the air to root cellar temperature, even before evaporative cooling gets involved. Selectively closing doors during the day and opening them at night for the cooler air from that time can also help, but is much more labor intensive to pull off.
> The dew point will usually be well above 32 °F, so some condensation from ambient humidity will occur on the cold water surface, and provide additional water, beyond the supply of melted ice.
> As with the ice box, nether cap wood is much more difficult to obtain than ice, but does not need to be replenished.
As a rule, dried goods are both lighter and smaller than they were moist. The catch is that moist food can provide a substantial amount of water in the overall diet, and if food is consumed dry then the removed water will need to be drunk directly. In other words, eating dry food seems likely to increase thirst.
> The math also works if eating moist food reduces thirst, while dry food does not, but making dry food increase thirst should reduce walking by prompting a need to drink shortly after eating; normal design will helpfully put drinks near the usual eating spots.
> Drying is an IMPROVEMENT reaction that significantly changes the properties of the improved item. Both the base item being improved and the exact improving reagent are significant, and should be tracked in the finished product. Compare dye and glaze, which also display both of these behaviors.
4. Sun drying: “Simply leave the food exposed to sun and wind to allow the moisture to be carried off.”
Obviously, this option will not be available in all climates, and even locations that do allow it won’t necessarily do so during all seasons. Making it work well will require a much more detailed display for temperature, humidity, and preferably histories and forecasts of both. DF does include some sort of weather simulator, so most of these data are in the game somewhere, but sun drying only works if they are accessible to the player in fortress mode.
> Usually applied to fruit. Probably workable, but certainly not ideal, for meat (including fish). Leaf vegetables usually need to be cut into very small pieces to dry correctly. I’m not sure about squashes or roots.
> Sun drying, unlike the other methods, does nothing in particular to keep the food dry. Packaging items preserved this way for export will be tricky: effective export requires that the source, the destination, and most of the route is not too disruptive of the process. That said, a suitably airtight container can minimize issues from the trip and the destination.
Sun drying is definitely a skilled trade. This could mean Thresher, Herbalist, Grower, or a new skill.
> Some foods need to be cut into small pieces to dry properly.
> Depending on how the food is spread for sun and wind, it might need to be rearranged periodically so everything gets dry.
> The overseer also needs to watch the weather, so the food can be brought inside if rain looks likely.
> Sun drying will probably need a specialized zone, and counts as a long-term unattended reaction. The hard part will be linking this zone to respect humidity, temperature, rain, and climate.
“Dry the food over a fire. The coating of smoke helps too.”
The distinguishing feature of smoking is that compounds from the smoke collect as a layer on the surface of the smoked food. Many have antibiotic or antioxidant properties, but the smoke only collects on the surface of the food; it does not penetrate at all, and is generally not sufficient in practice.
> For best preservation results, smoking should be combined with some method of drying. Fortunately, the flame required for smoking quite easily produces enough dry heat to dry the food. Unlike sun drying, smoking can be done in any climate. It is usually done indoors (in a
smokehouse) so rain is not as disruptive of the process as it is for sun drying.
> Smoking is usually done on meat and some organs. Some plant foods and even cheeses are also smoked for flavor; for example, chipotle is smoked jalapenos.
> The traditional smoking wood in Europe is apparently alder, although various fruit (apple, plum) and nut (oak, hickory) trees can also be used, and apparently impart flavors to the meat (similar to that of their respective growth food item). Charcoal is also an option. I have also read about herbs or spices being added to the pile of smoking wood to give their flavors to the item being smoked, although I suspect that rubbing them onto the food directly would give better results.
> Smoking will benefit strongly from implementation of scrap wood from carpentry, or twigs that are usable for fuel but not lumber. So will charcoal and ash production, but that is drifting too far off topic.
> There are three distinct styles of smoking: cold smoking, hot smoking, and roasting.
> Cold smoking is primarily done for flavor, generally on meat which has already been salt cured. It does not cook the meat (usual temperature 20-30 C; 68-86 F). Drying of the food is also less than hotter smoking methods. This technique is not suitable as a stand alone method of preservation, so I will ignore it for the rest of this article.
> Hot smoking is the process that I assume will be most common in Dwarf Fortress: food (usually meat) is cooked over a smoky fire (52-80 °C; 126-176 F). This will also dry it somewhat, although the finished product is usually somewhat moist in texture. The familiar jerky is usually salt cured and hot smoked.
> Smoke roasting employs even higher temperatures than hot smoking (above 176 °F), drying the food out more in the process.
Smoking could be run several different ways:
1. At the butcher shop, and using Butcher skill. In this case, the Fishery would probably have a similar reaction.
2. At a separate building (smokehouse) next to the butcher shop (compare the Tanner’s shop we have now), probably still using Butcher skill. I don’t know how this idea should interact with the Fishery.
3. At the Kitchen (compare the current “render fat” reaction). May use Cooking or Butcher skill.
“Add salt to draw water out of the food by osmosis.”
Ground salt is added to the food to both dry it out and ensure it stays dry. Almost exclusively applied to meat and fish. Salted meat is noted for its long shelf life, and thus a very useful trade good. The salt itself would also be valuable.
> Depending on the original moisture content of the food, the water drawn out by the salt may be sufficient to produce a liquid brine, which results in “brine pickling,” covered below. Most vegetables treated with dry salt are thus brine pickled, rather than salt cured. For programming simplicity, it would probably be best to lump these under brine pickling. If this needs to be distinguished, “salt pickling” might be the best phrase.
> Salt can be acquired either from mined rock salt (which will become an economic stone, probably powdered at the millstone) or concentrating salt from seawater (probably using brine as an intermediate product). In either case, salt will be an extremely valuable trade good.
> I stated at the beginning of the section that “eating dry food seems likely to increase thirst.” Salted food is especially bad about this, much more than other methods of drying, since the salt must be concentrated and disposed of by the kidneys. (As a side note, this is also why people are advised to not drink seawater: it is more concentrated than human kidneys can achieve, so additional water from somewhere else is required to dispose of the salt that came with the seawater.)
This one may not need a skill or building at all.
> Programming seems easier with one, so use the Butcher shop and skill (or Fishery and Fish Cleaner skill).
> In the unlikely event that plants get processed this way, use the existing Farmer workshop and Thresher skill.
“Add sugar to draw water out of the food by osmosis.”
Usually applied to fruit, and the product is called “candied fruit” (not to be confused with jams and preserves, which I have placed in the pickling section). Meat can also be dried with sugar.
> The comment under salt curing about drawing out enough water for pickling has its analogue with sugar: the result is “syrup pickling,” or, if it needs to be distinguished, “sugar pickling.”
> On the other hand, sugar can be metabolized by most creatures, so sugar-cured foods will not have the secondary thirst effect that salted ones do. This may make them a viable export good. It will be especially valuable to merchants, soldiers, and other travelers which have limited carrying capacity to handle the higher drink requirements imposed by salted food.
> Unlike salt, sugar is a potential target for fermentation. That said, many of the fermentation products are preservatives in their own right (such as alcohol, acetic acid, and lactic acid). Fermentation of the sugar tends to imply some degree of fermentation in the preserved product.
> Dwarves seem to start world generation with sweet pods domesticated (or at least reliably have them domesticated very quickly), but sugar cane and sugar beets (the main sources of refined sugar on Earth) are not yet implemented in the game, nor is tapping maple trees for sap (another source of syrup and sugar, much more important in earlier centuries). Sugarcane has been a very important cash crop on Earth, and sweet pods may likewise become a valuable cash crop for the dwarves, especially for selling to the humans and elves, which will often lack their own sources of sugar (and the salt that sugar often replaces).
Implementation follows Salt curing.
Food is stored under a “pickling liquid,” which slows or prevents spoiling and often provides an environment for the food to ferment somewhat, changing its flavor and texture. All pickled products will need to be stored in water-tight containers.
>
The pickling series was items 8-14. I ran out of space in this post (limit 40,000 characters), and decided that the pickling series should be kept together.
> Several pickling liquids are possible, and each works best with a certain range of foods. I identified seven segments, and ten reactions. Details in a future post.
Others 15. Potted meat: Meat is cooked (boiled or similar), then a layer of molten fat is poured over it. The fat is a type that is solid at room temperature, and after it hardens it forms an airtight barrier.
The DF reaction to produce this product will need a container (probably a jug) that is fire-safe and water-tight, a stack of meat, and a glob of tallow (specifically tallow: oil will not work). It will also need to be done at a fire pit or similar, and the reaction should include fuel for this.
> This method of preservation relies on an airtight seal, and opening the container breaks that seal, so I believe that, at least in practical terms, potted meat will be [EDIBLE_COOKED] (which implies emptying the jug in fairly short order) but not [EDIBLE_RAW] (which often implies taking only some food and leaving the rest).
Animal intestine is used as a casing for other food items. I assume that the standard sausage of DF will be cooked and smoked before storing, and thus have a relatively long shelf life.
Possible ingredients for the filling include meat, organ meats (except intestine and tripe), fat/tallow,
blood, and grain flours (either directly or as bread crumbs). This may be the primary method of preserving most organ meats. A single sausage recipe will usually involve several different ingredients.
> Most sausage recipes include spices such as salt, onion, peppers, or garlic, which both add flavor and act as preservatives.
> Some recipes use tripe, rather than intestine, for the casing.
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Topic: More reasonable food system (aka Down with prepared meals!) (Read 31343 times)