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[Bohandas]

It would make sense to have the option to create prepared meals that actually were cooked, either over some kind of fuel or wood or else over magma like in that one Heidevolk song.

There would still be the option to create meals without fuel as we do now, but the value of such meals would be reduced.

[utunnels]

Maybe like a hospital, we can define a dining hall and put a kitchen in it. So when some dorfs want to eat, they sit at the tables, then a cook will arrive and serve them. If there's no cook available, the customers will help themselves by getting something edible from the barrels.

[Waparius]

There's been some really good kitchen suggestions several times in the past and yeah, general consensus is that cooking is due for a serious overhaul. Search up the threads if you want all the details but the main points include things like making meals cooked on-demand (or having specific mealtimes), making ingredients require various levels of preservation, and making the only tradeable food items those that aren't perishable.

[GoblinCookie]

We need to cook single items rather than having to make a proper meal.  Ideally dwarves should need to have a whole load of kitchens between the food stockpile and the dining room, so they can cook items like meat and fish before eating them.  They should get unhappy mood for eating raw meat and fish. 

Fuel however is out for as long as we are forced to rely on charcoal and coal, which are labour intensive and scarce as fuel.

We need firewood, straw, peat, dung and so on to be usable as fuel before we can make cooking require fuel. 

[Bohandas]

We need to cook single items rather than having to make a proper meal.  Ideally dwarves should need to have a whole load of kitchens between the food stockpile and the dining room, so they can cook items like meat and fish before eating them.  They should get unhappy mood for eating raw meat and fish. 

Fuel however is out for as long as we are forced to rely on charcoal and coal, which are labour intensive and scarce as fuel.

We need firewood, straw, peat, dung and so on to be usable as fuel before we can make cooking require fuel.

I agree. We should definitely at least have the option to cook over wood. And we should retain the option to produce uncooked meals, but the uncooked meals shouldn't be worth as much

[AceSV]

We need firewood, straw, peat, dung and so on to be usable as fuel before we can make cooking require fuel.

That suggests you would have a group of low-heat fuels as opposed to high-heat fuels.  You could cook your meals with straw, but not your glass and metal.  Glass and Iron melt at around 2000F, way more than is desirable for cooking.

 However, DF tends to eschew such materials.  I'm comfortable with the idea that dwarves can start low temp fires without trackable tools or trackable fuel. 

So while it sounds cool, cooking your food over an active volcano is not practical if you live in a world that measures temperature, which DF does. 

[Niddhoger]

The idea for dorfs to sit and wait for a cook is a rather terrible one.  It would more than triple the time it takes a dorf to eat (sits down and creates job, cook travels to kitchen, cook makes the meal, THEN dorf eats... would create huge bottleneck).  You guys are talking about hte absence of wood, but no one has also mentioned the absence of water.  When cooking a stew, you aren't just using the juices found in the food.  Water needs to be mixed with flour to create the dough, etc.  You can't just toss flour into a dry mix...

I've suggested cooking with spices before.  They'd act as a 5th (3rd/4th) ingredient that doesn't actually increase stack size/count as nourishment, but would give a happy thought.  They could be counted as food decorations in game, causing a roast with spices to have brackets -<+Plump Helmet Roast+>- where the "decoration" was cloves or something.  We'd have to mill some of them, and then they'd need to be added for so many units of a roast (a sprinkle of pepper is lost in a barrel-feeling mess of forgotten beast roast).  The added spice would then generate a happy thought related to how well it was applied.

And yes, raw meats should give negative thoughts.  Hell, raw intestines should make a dorf violently ill (you are eating e. coli).  However, you don't need a handful of logs to cook up a meal.  Historically, it was an insulated stove that kept a pot of hot, slow-burning coals inside.  If you were cooking a feast, you wouldn't need to clear a forest to prepare it.  You'd just need a couple units of charcoal for the entire day. 

Before we can talk about any of this, however, we need to address food spoilage.  Namely, the lack thereof.  Sure, foods spoil oustide of a stockpile... but you are in a scorching tropical jungle.  Raw meat should practically disintegrate when exposed to the elements.  However, you can toss pig intestines onto the muddy floor and it'll be just bloody fine.  Just designate that tile of mud (exposed to the sun, sky high humidity, and swarms of flies) as a "food stockpile" and pasture a cat over it and it'll last indefinitely.  Cats protect against swarms of flies, ants, and other bugs- right?

[AceSV]

I like the idea of adding spices to food.  Historically, spices were valuable trade goods as well, even if you don't eat them. 

About raw meat, I've always assumed that when dwarves create meat items at the butcher shop, they are drying and salting and so forth in addition to just hacking up an animal, and that a food stockpile designation tells dwarves to bury the items or otherwise store them safely.  Such activities would are too tedious for Armok. 

[Niddhoger]

Eh.... then if you don't have any wood/materials at all, the dorfs just spontaneously generate a sealed, vermin/environmentally sealed boxes out of thin air? Burying is typically a really bad idea unless the ground is frozen.  Non-frozen ground (or maybe sand) will still get hte food dirty, but doesn't have reams of insects/worms burying through it to get at the food.