Or, Making Food A Little More Challenging.
A new ruling: Food can only be cooked in specific combinations, making having a variety of ingredients essential to the production of superior meals.
A sample table follows. This assumes the removal of booze as a food substrate.
INGREDIENTS:
-Meat (Includes tallow?)
-Flour
-Sugar
-Syrup
-Plant
-Seed
Easy
1 Meat, 1 Plant; Spiced ____ Jerky
2 Meat: ____ Jerky, ____ Jerky (each meat, no food lost)
2 Flour: ____ Biscuit
1 Flour, 1 Sugar: Cookie
1 Sugar, 1 Syrup: Sweets
2 Plant: ____ Salad
1 Plant, 1 Seed: Trail Mix
Fine
1 Meat, 1 Flour, 1 Seed/Plant: ____ Sandwich
2 Meat, 1 Seed: ____ Roast (Must be same meat)
2 Meat, 1 Syrup: Sweet ____ Roast (Must be same meat)
3 Meat: ____ Cut (Must be same meat)
2 Meat, 1 Plant: ____ Kebab
1 Meat, 2 Plant: ____ Stew
1 Flour, 1 Sugar, 1 Syrup: ____ Dessert
3 Flour: ____ Bun
2 Sugar, 1 Syrup: Candy
1 Syrup, 1 Flour, 1 Plant: ____ Sandwich (Equivalent of PB&J)
Lavish
1 Meat, 2 Flour, 1 Plant - Feast
1 Flour, 1 Sugar, 1 Syrup, 1 Plant* - ___ Cake (Only uses certain plants; strawberry, plump helmet, berries)
3 Meat, 1 Seed/Plant: ____ Filet (Must be same meat)
4 Meat: ____ Sirloin (Must be same meat)
3 Flour, 1 Seed: ____ Seed Bun
3 Sugar, 1 Syrup: Confection
In addition, food preferences could be added; barring/forestalling that, confections should make your dwarves more active for a brief period (defined by quality of the meal), but more sluggish for a period if eaten twice or more in a row (also defined by the quality of the meal).
The hopeful goal:
-Make wheat more important
-Differentiate between large and small animals for meat (sirloins vs. jerky)
-No more Dwarven Syrup Roast
-Plenty of variety
-Confections as a priveleged/controlled boost to add a new element to the game
I humbly submit these to your approval.