By the 1400's, there were several ways to prepare and cook foods. The according to wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_cuisine, there were cultural contraints on which class of people could eat/prepare which foods as well.
It would be rather easy to identify a specific foodstuff like "plump helmets" (or more likely "alcohol") as a "staple" food and therefore require it's inclusion in most of the rest of the recipes. I imagine a procedural set of recipes foe entire meals could very well follow the same forms as poems, songs, stories or types of dances: The number of ingredients and specific way to prepare each ingredient being set procedurally, and a "cook" having to "perform" each recipe as a set of tasks: having a chance to succeed or fail at each new ingredient. The successful preparation of a five ingredient recipe would entail six chances to succeed/fail for instance: One each for each new ingredient and one final one to bring the prepared ingredients together into a finished meal. Five course meals would probably be considered "lavish", and their descriptions would describe each course as if it were an embellishment. New recipes, therefore, could very well be created as "artifact moods" and be legendary affairs that use up massive amounts of food. If at any point, a "cook" fails a preparation of a particular course, the previously prepared ingredients become "basic meals" of just one course, but the "cook" themselves may need cheering up over their failure.
With food recipes becoming a cultural expression, each civ may only prepare meals a dozen or so different ways, with "new" recipes stemming from Player forts' artifact moods. This makes each civ seem original and also drives the eventual economy arc, as each civ would value certain foods as "staple" (ie: sell us as much as you can, it's in everything!" and some as "exotic" (ie: we won't buy much of this stuff, but when we do, it goes for high value.) I imagine the "favorite food" of a civ's given ruler might be in this category as well - only the ruler and its immediate court eats this stuff, but to eat it with the ruler means you are part of the "elite/royalty".
In game terms, an adventurer going from one civ to another may recognize it in the manner of many tourists: by eating "exotic" (to them) foods. In-game, the memory checks would only have to load in 6-24 recipes at any given time. Not much of a resource drain to increase the apparent simulation quality of the world as experienced by the Player via their character.
It's not outside the realm of possibility that procedural recipes become a cultural expression as much as instruments, songs, poems and dances have been. The satisfaction and therefore "happy thought" of a sentient eating a meal cooked "like they do back at home" seems a very natural expression, as does a sentient getting a "miasma" or "drinking nasty water" bad thought from smelling or eating "exotic" food when they don't have the personality that enjoys new experiences. Vampires in particular might be constrained to "fresh blood" as their only way to get a "good thought" from eating anything: everything else causes bad thoughts and disgust as if from "drinking nasty water".
Personally, I've been interested in a more complex food preparation/diet addition for several years in this game.
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Topic: There should be procedurally generated food recipes. (Read 1873 times)