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[Felix the Cat]

Agreed.

I propose a grammar like this:
[INGREDIENT_USE][PREP_ADJECTIVE][PREP_METHOD][INGREDIENT_NAME]
INGREDIENT_USE: How the ingredient is incorporated into the dish, i.e. "garnished with". Would have to be associated with INGREDIENT_NAME so we don't get things like "marinated in dog meat".
PREP_ADJECTIVE: This could either be the ingredient preparation quality modifier or just glitter, i.e. "lightly". Would have to be associated with the PREP_METHOD so we don't get "lightly diced" ingredients and other things that don't make sense.
PREP_METHOD: How the ingredient is prepared, i.e. "seared"
INGREDIENT_NAME: The ingredient name, i.e. "quarry bush leaves".

All ingredients with identical INGREDIENT_USE would have the INGREDIENT_USE listed once and the rest listed with an "and", i.e. "topped with finely minced quarry bush leaves and melted cat tallow".

So, what we have now:
[INGREDIENT_USE]
garnished with
mixed with
topped with
served with
spiced with
flavored with
stuffed with
coated with
breaded with
basted with
braised with
simmered in
steeped in
marinated in
fried in
boiled in

[PREP_ADJECTIVE]
lightly
finely
heavily
well
coarsely
raw
rare
well-done (meats)
overly (negative quality)

[PREP_METHOD]
grated
whisked
tenderized
strained
burnt
charred (maybe this and burnt could be screwups by novice cooks trying to prepare lavish meals that lower the meal quality)
melted
slow cooked
slow roasted
spitted
sliced
juilenned
blanched
fried
deep fried
sautéed
churned
spoiled (another possible novice screwup)
rotted (and another)
chilled
seared
grilled
browned
mashed
smashed
ground
boiled
caramelized
fricassed
frappéd
broiled
steamed
zested
cured
smoked
barbecued
poached
powdered
dehydrated
pickled
pureed
salted (would be cool if this actually required salt)
glazed
fermented
folded
diced
marbled
chopped
quartered
cubed
hammered
crushed
potted

You know what would be even cooler and more radical? Each ingredient can have several components and derivatives. These wouldn't actually exist as game-world objects, just as further "spice" to the descriptions. Cooks could then separate the ingredient into its components and use them separately (with no influence on the size of the stack), perhaps discarding some (again, with no influence on the size of the stack of meals). The cook could also change an ingredient into a derivative.

For example:
Ingredient: cow milk
Components: cow milk curds, cow milk whey
Derivatives: cow milk cream, cow milk butter, cow milk yogurt, cow milk heavy cream

Ingredient: dwarven flour
Components: none
Derivatives: dwarven bread, dwarven noodles, dwarven cake, dwarven gruel (very low quality?)

...and so you see my motivation for suggesting this...
Ingredient: cat meat
Components: cat blood, cat liver, cat rind, cat brain
Derivatives: cat sausage

Yes, I desperately want to see something like this:
*Plump helmet roast*
This is a stack of 10 plump helmet roasts. The meal consists of cubed plump helmets, marinated in lightly chilled cat blood.

[Strangething]

There's not a lot of point in making it too complicated. Most meals get made and consumed without the player ever seeing them. But there's still fun to be had:

Masterpiece meals with the cooks name attached: plump helmets a la Urist.

If raw meat becomes inedible, I'd like to see a "cook meat" option in the kitchen menu. Roast cat, cat steaks, cat sausage, catburgers, cat pot pie, cat fajitas...

(I don't actually eat cats at my fortress. I use them as goblin  bait.)

[Reasonableman]

I think, that before we do anything with cooking, something needs to happen to divide the stuff you get from butchering the adult form of something from the child form of something. I WANT ME SOME KITTEN MITTENS!

[Felix the Cat]

There's not a lot of point in making it too complicated. Most meals get made and consumed without the player ever seeing them.

I pause every couple of minutes and look at things. Meals are a bit disappointing at the moment - the infinite number of "this is a stack of 10 dwarven wine biscuits, the ingredients are minced dwarven wine and minced dwarven wine" isn't very exciting.

Then again, my obsession with looking at everything the dwarves create is the main reason why I don't have any of those 10+ year forts that you see... I end up playing DF at about one season an hour 

But there's still fun to be had:

Masterpiece meals with the cooks name attached: plump helmets a la Urist.

Hey, that would be cool then. Maybe meals could work like engravings - non-masterpiece ones might be "renditions" of masterpiece ones: "This is a stack of 10 cat meat roasts, prepared in the style of Urist McPrud'homme".

If raw meat becomes inedible, I'd like to see a "cook meat" option in the kitchen menu. Roast cat, cat steaks, cat sausage, catburgers, cat pot pie, cat fajitas...

(I don't actually eat cats at my fortress. I use them as goblin  bait.)

I guess I assume that dwarves are capable of digesting raw meat. It seems like a dwarfy trait. Heck, we frail humans can handle raw fish just fine, and some people don't even have a problem digesting raw beef. I worked as a meat cutter in a gourmet grocery store for a while. We ground our own beef fresh several times a day. The seafood manager would sneak handfuls of raw ground beef and eat them, which I found rather odd.

I'd definitely like to see some foods require further processing, however. I think this is coming with the expansion of the reaction system to encompass all workshops. When that's in, I'll definitely make a Chef Mod! (The mod's mascot will of course be Chef from South Park 

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'm amazed we've forgotten the most important Dwarven cooking technique:

Hammered.

[Felix the Cat]

Updated the list to include that, as well as a couple others I thought of 

Also added a negative quality modifier to the adjectives list. So your Novice Cook may prepare the following dish:
This is a cow meat biscuit. It consists of overly ground cow meat, topped with spoiled plump helmet, served with rotted dwarven wheat bread.

Mmm... Dwarven McDonald's!

[RavingManiac]

Have meals require wood as fuel! Then we can have magma kitchens!

[Neonivek]

Have meals require wood as fuel!

O_o!

[RavingManiac]

Have meals require wood as fuel!

O_o!

We need to burn stuff to cook, don't we?

[Neonivek]

We need to burn stuff to cook, don't we?

Of course... one second as I make Jello... I mean Icecream... I mean Punch... I mean Salad... I mean Raisens... I mean worms... I mean Cheese... I mean Honey... I mean Sushi

Alright bad joke aside... It would depend how much wood... A peice of wood per season would be nice!

[korora]

Have meals require wood as fuel! Then we can have magma kitchens!

As long as each tree contains only enough wood for one chair, and since we know from the wood furnace that dwarves have no problem igniting wood, I think we can just say that they use wood scraps and leave it out of gameplay. 

Although I do love the idea of a magma kitchen. Very dwarfy.  Maybe we could still include one and it could give meals a quality boost?  Magma-roasted elephant tallow, anyone?

[Lord Nightmare]

"The pipes have the tangy taste of 100% real steel, basted with slime, and rusted to a delicate crunch." - space quest 4

LN

[Felix the Cat]

If meat were made to spoil quickly, then perhaps a Smoke Meat job could be added that requires raw meat and wood and outputs smoked meat, which doesn't spoil.

Indeed, if food preservation were more than just sticking things in barrels, I could see a whole host of jobs.

Has Toady given any indication of whether expanding the reaction system to encompass all workshop jobs is coming soon or in the distant future?

[viskaslietuvai]

I don't have anything mind-blowing to add to this, I just wanted to revive the suggestion.
As a former cook it just makes me twitch a bit when I see a meal with four ingredients, all minced. The cook inside just starts freaking out, "You can do so much more than mince things! There are other chopping methods! You can sautee, roast, make it a damn custard Do something!"
Realize, please, that this is merely the cook aspect of my personality. The majority of my psyche still marvels at the creation of Toady.

[Cavalcadeofcats]

The necromancer: bane of man!

Though I do like the suggestion.