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[Thormgrim]

Fat Friar, that comic was *masterwork*

I really was originally thinking of Charcoal for cooking as a sort of game balancing thing, actually.  I realize talking about game balancing in the context of DF is sort of heresy, but the reason was that there are lots of uses for wood already, but only a few for charcoal.  Currently, charcoal is used exclusively as a fuel and wood is used exclusively as either an ingredient for the carpenter/craftdwarf or for conversion into fuel.  It just seemed more in keeping with the themes of the item types if less "historically accurate".

In any case, I think magma would be better anyway

[warwizard]

insect waxes... beeswax anyone? Candles, jar sealant for food preserves, and 1001 other uses.

[khearn]

I can't see anybody in the middle ages wasting charcoal on cooking food. Sure as an option if you have some sitting around that you are sure you don't need, but the primary reaction would use basic wood.

Large parts of Europe were partially or complete deforested during the middle ages, and a lot of that was used for making charcoal.

Even now, it's used as a major fuel in parts of the third world. According to Wikipedia's Charcoal article:

In Malawi, illegal charcoal trade employs 92,800 workers and is the main source of heat and cooking fuel for 90 percent of the nation’s population.

There must be a very good reason for them to use charcoal instead of wood.

[GavJ]

From what I can tell from additional googling, the main advantage seems to be that if you're in a crowded slum in a city, the smaller amount of fumes is very attractive. Light weight is also cited, but again, it's minor weight difference per BTU. I find it hard to believe the transit difference is worth the cost and loss of energy (which could have been sold!) for just being 20-30% lighter.

There seems to also be some mention of storage ease, but I'm not quite sure I see why. Possibly something like "if you're too poor to have a reliable roof and your fuel is going to get wet no matter what, charcoal won't rot" ??  Even trivial infrastructure would stop wood from rotting too, though, and it is more energy dense volume-wise, which matters more for storage on site than weight does.

So yeah, probably smoke/fumes mostly.

Could also be something dumb like habit, or "that's what my stove uses" or "it looks more modern to show off to neighbors" etc. Never know.

[Thormgrim]

smoke/fumes would make a pretty sensible motivator when you're in mine, i imagine.

[GavJ]

First we need a game that actually knows whether things are above ground or not... *sigh*