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[Lemunde]

Here's a thought. Aside from the number of ingredients are there any differences between a roast, stew and biscuit? If not then it might actually be more efficient to make biscuits or stews if you lack a lot of variety in food types. I noticed most of the time when I have a lavish meal produced my dwarves will use the same ingredient more than once, sometimes making the whole meal out of one ingredient. Such meals would have the same chance of producing a happy thought as lesser meals.

I'd suggest when you start making meals start with lavish meals and check to see if any ingredients are getting reused a lot. If so then consider stepping down to roasts and if it's still a problem go with biscuits.

[Garath]

basically, no difference i think, except the price etc. However, if your basic food supplies are running over, preparing a lavish meal is more likely to consume lots of annoying storage taking items

i have a special storage for seeds and sell off any i dont need. it works better than blocking productions

[proxn_punkd]

I tested Blue_Dwarf's save and determined that with his setup the dwarves would refuse to use the nearby syrup for cooking while there were any other solid ingredients available.  It didn't seem to matter if the ingredients were plant, meat, or tallow.  This was very strange as in my own fortress my dwarves would happily make stacks of food out of one solid ingredient and three barrels of syrup even with plenty of solid ingredients available.

I noticed the main difference between my setup and Blue_Dwarf's is that I strictly segregate my food stockpiles such that barrels can only be used for liquid foods (booze and extracts) while solids are stored outside of barrels.  I wondered if this might be a factor.  So I forbade storage of meat in Blue_Dwarf's main stockpile and created a new stockpile of just meat with zero barrels permitted.  Then I seized a giant lion from the elves and butchered it.  Once the new stockpile was full of meat, I forbade the cooking of everything but syrup and giant lion meats, and set the kitchen to cooking.

The result:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It appears that whether or not an ingredient is stored in a barrel is a factor on the order in which dwarves will use ingredients.  Ingredients in barrels get used before ingredients not in barrels.  I always store non-liquids outside of barrels, which is why my fortresses never have trouble cooking liquids.  If all your foodstuffs are stored in barrels, the liquids won't get cooked until all the solids are gone.  Mystery solved.

SCIENCE!

*toasts to your findings*

[Blue_Dwarf]

It appears that whether or not an ingredient is stored in a barrel is a factor on the order in which dwarves will use ingredients.  Ingredients in barrels get used before ingredients not in barrels.  I always store non-liquids outside of barrels, which is why my fortresses never have trouble cooking liquids.  If all your foodstuffs are stored in barrels, the liquids won't get cooked until all the solids are gone.  Mystery solved.

Wow, who would have thought...  Good job 

So now we have a new problem. We have to figure out whether cooking without syrup is worse than cooking without barrels in food stockpiles.

[Nidokoenig]

The only issue there is that not storing food in barrels takes more space, but storing food in barrels uses more barrels/pots, and can interfere with custom reactions. I can't get my ponies to make dough or paint wood if any of the ingredients are stored in containers, for example. So I'm definitely forbidding unnecessary use of barrels now. Awesome work!

[Blue_Dwarf]

It appears that whether or not an ingredient is stored in a barrel is a factor on the order in which dwarves will use ingredients.  Ingredients in barrels get used before ingredients not in barrels.  I always store non-liquids outside of barrels, which is why my fortresses never have trouble cooking liquids.  If all your foodstuffs are stored in barrels, the liquids won't get cooked until all the solids are gone.  Mystery solved.

Does anyone know if this has changed in the recent versions?

Feeling a bit lazy to do science on it again...

[Gentlefish]

I'm pretty sure the reasoning with this is the fact that there's probably more meat in those barrels than there is syrup in a barrel.

I bet it works exactly like the seed thing, where almost-full bags get used before the empty bags that are surrounding them so they're used up first. In this case, though, it's stuffed-full meat barrels getting picked over less item-heavy syrup barrels.

[Broseph Stalin]

Does anyone know if this has changed in the recent versions?

Feeling a bit lazy to do science on it again...

Even if it didn't creating secondary stockpiles could fix it. Just put a stockpile that accepts only liquids and a stockpile that accepts any food but doesn't take any barrels and set them to take from the primary food stockpiles and give to the kitchen.

[Blue_Dwarf]

Does anyone know if this has changed in the recent versions?

Feeling a bit lazy to do science on it again...

Even if it didn't creating secondary stockpiles could fix it. Just put a stockpile that accepts only liquids and a stockpile that accepts any food but doesn't take any barrels and set them to take from the primary food stockpiles and give to the kitchen.

It seems that dwarves don't take stuff out of the barrels to put it into a stockpile that doesn't accept barrels.