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[Chocolatemilkgod]

Plus there's the extra-Fun option of Magma Kitchens.

No...Cause then the food would be burnt all the time 

[Sunken]

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.

[vadia]

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

[Chocolatemilkgod]

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!

[Andeerz]

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.     

[harborpirate]

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.

[AngleWyrm]

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.

[harborpirate]

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.

[vadia]

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. 

[Misterstone]

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!!

[Waparius]

[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.

[harborpirate]

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.

[harborpirate]

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.

[harborpirate]

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.

[ZebioLizard2]

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.