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[AngleWyrm]

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.

[Misterstone]

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.

[harborpirate]

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.

[harborpirate]

[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.

[harborpirate]

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.

[harborpirate]

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.

[Waparius]

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.

[Andeerz]

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. 

[harborpirate]

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.

[uttaku]

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.

[Misterstone]

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'

[therahedwig]

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.

[Andeerz]

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.

[therahedwig]

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).

[vadia]

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]