Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Badger Storm]

If salt becomes a thing, I'd like to see salt glaze for pottery.  It might also be useful as bait to trap ungulates who crave that mineral.

[Aslandus]

If salt becomes a thing, I'd like to see salt glaze for pottery.  It might also be useful as bait to trap ungulates who crave that mineral.

Or to spread around and watch snails and slugs dissolve in it...

[Batgirl1]

I'm pretty sure in the standard game there aren't any spices, but there is tallow and seeds which I guess are kind of similar in how strange it is that you can get meals made entirely of tallow or seeds.

Barrels containing fruit from trees are called "spice barrels"  so the idea is there at least, although a typical processed snack would be more like salt, salt, sugar, oil...

Quarry bush leaves are spices.

Yeah, I was referring to quarry bush leaves, mainly.  Do dorfs really make foods entirely out of quarry bush leaves?  (At least seeds make sense, in a granola kind of way.)

You could also use salt to melt ice and render a farm unusable forever, though why you'd want to do that last one is beyond me.

ETA: Wait a second!  DF has ghosts and other supernatural things, right?  Isn't salt supposed to have some kind of demon-repelling properties?  Toss a bit over your left shoulder to blind the devil; trap a ghost in a circle of salt--that sort of thing?  Maybe this could be worked in somehow...

[Waparius]

Salt as a preservative and spicing have both been discussed quite a bit in cooking and agriculture megathreads, but I do like the idea of including it for supernatural/ceremonial purposes.

[Cobbler89]

In some religions salt has supernatural/anti-demonic properties if and only if it's exorcised -- like it carries the exorcism with it, or something to similar effect. (Now, whether anyone believes that only salt can carry that sort of exorcism, or whether it's more a matter of the exorcism and salt just happens to be everybody's favorite implement... I wouldn't know, although I might be able to find out if I really wanted to...)

In any case, I'd say this suggestion is... worth its salt!

[Waparius]

Now, whether anyone believes that only salt can carry that sort of exorcism, or whether it's more a matter of the exorcism and salt just happens to be everybody's favorite implement... I wouldn't know, although I might be able to find out if I really wanted to...)

In any case, I'd say this suggestion is... worth its salt!

Iir it's because salt keeps food from going bad. If it keeps out the rot then it might just work in ghosts too, sort of thing.

[utunnels]

Just a quick thought, sugar can preserve food as well.

[Bumber]

You could also use salt to melt ice and render a farm unusable forever, though why you'd want to do that last one is beyond me.

Could be useful for inhibiting grass/moss growth in places, e.g. gather zones and fire hazards.

[MDFification]

I'm pretty sure in the standard game there aren't any spices, but there is tallow and seeds which I guess are kind of similar in how strange it is that you can get meals made entirely of tallow or seeds.

Barrels containing fruit from trees are called "spice barrels"  so the idea is there at least, although a typical processed snack would be more like salt, salt, sugar, oil...

Quarry bush leaves are spices.

I'm not sure what the justification is for calling them spices, since they're used as solid meal components.
I like the idea of spices being an extra modifier you can put on your food (season meal as a job in the kitchen; consumes spices and prepared meals to create a meal of a higher value with another component). But what I like even more is the idea of using salt as a preservative. Basically everything that can go in a food stockpile that's solid can be preserved with salt - if we made food rot quicker in stockpiles, it would a) increase the challenge in terms of feeding your fort b) introduce a new industry and valued trade comoddity, increasing the incentive for trading and c) create new cooking jobs; salt solid food.

[Batgirl1]

Rather than having "seasoned food" as a separate job, I think It'd be easier if salt and spices were handled the way liquids are in cooking: randomly grabbed as an ingredient, but not usable as the sole foundation of a recipe. 

[vomov]

I've heard that rocksalt (the pink one, not halite) was used to preserve foodstuffs. They'd simply made a ☼jug☼ out of it, and put the food, including raw meat, inside it.  That shouldn't be outside dwarven capabilities, just as boiling brine to get salt.

[Batgirl1]

One more thought now that the Tavern arc is upon us: Dwarven Margaritas with salt around the rim!

[Badger Storm]

But y'see, that would require tequila, which in turn requires agave plants.  At least dwarves' judgment can't get any worse under its influence.