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[Lozzymandias]

Its generally prudent to provide a variety of foods. However, what constitutes a different food?

For instance, butchering an animal usually yields about 10 different kinds of item, meat, fat, eyes and brain and lung and heart and organ and so forth. Suppose a dorf has just eaten yak heart, if he then eats yak lung will he consider that to be a different meal? As far as i can see as long as you have a steady supply of butchery animals there doesn't seem much point in farming, apart from alcohol and clothing and the like.

[PatrikLundell]

I think you're basically correct.

My understanding is that DF currently doesn't understand categories, so each item is its own thing. Thus, the variety criterion is easily fulfilled, while the favorite food ones are mostly impossible, both since dorfs are mostly or completely incapable of getting meals containing their favorite ingredients (they do go for raw stuff to some extent, though), and because most things are simply impossible to get (ocean fish parts in a mountain fortress, for instance).

There have been a some suggestion threads concerning improved food need satisfaction as well as a deeper nutrition model.

[ldog]

If you look on a dwarf's preferences for one that likes meat; it will just say "cat" not "cat liver"
Also if you do not allow mixing on storage o(rders)->m(ix food/no mix) it will still put all the various butcher products from a cat into 1 barrel, all the yak parts in another, etc.

In practice it really isn't worth worrying about. Ditto for booze variety, keep the 4 basic types on hand and don't worry about the rest. This is coming from someone who used to buy up any other fruit/veggies from caravans for brewing and/or collect surface plants with herbalist. By the 3rd year of a fort my only issue with food/booze is where to keep it. A few small farms and a flock of peahens produces a lot.

[Ironfang]

Yeah, I got the same kind of thing. The only real exception is with crops that have oil producing seeds. By having a variety of them, you can produce more oil without risk of running out.

Example is growing Kenaf and cotton, or hemp and quarry bushes.

I also suggest acquiring pineapples whenever possible.

[Thisfox]

I also suggest acquiring pineapples whenever possible.

Pineapples are always a good idea.

Personally, I like collecting as many types of berries as possible, and keeping the seeds, and growing berry farms near the surface. They're brewable, cookable, and pretty when they grow. All sorts of good in that.

[Fearless Son]

Thus, the variety criterion is easily fulfilled, while the favorite food ones are mostly impossible, both since dorfs are mostly or completely incapable of getting meals containing their favorite ingredients (they do go for raw stuff to some extent, though), and because most things are simply impossible to get (ocean fish parts in a mountain fortress, for instance).

That is pretty realistic.  Few people living in the mountains in the center of continents get easy access to oceanic fish.  My sister lives in Switzerland and complains that she can only get small lake fish instead of the salmon she used to enjoy back home. 

Still, I suppose trade could alleviate some of that, if conditions were favorable.  I could see (for example) humans from a civilization with coastal towns bringing a bunch of fish in a barrel you could buy from them.  Resource specialization is a mark of a modern economy, after all. 

[PatrikLundell]

Thus, the variety criterion is easily fulfilled, while the favorite food ones are mostly impossible, both since dorfs are mostly or completely incapable of getting meals containing their favorite ingredients (they do go for raw stuff to some extent, though), and because most things are simply impossible to get (ocean fish parts in a mountain fortress, for instance).

That is pretty realistic.  Few people living in the mountains in the center of continents get easy access to oceanic fish.  My sister lives in Switzerland and complains that she can only get small lake fish instead of the salmon she used to enjoy back home. 

Still, I suppose trade could alleviate some of that, if conditions were favorable.  I could see (for example) humans from a civilization with coastal towns bringing a bunch of fish in a barrel you could buy from them.  Resource specialization is a mark of a modern economy, after all. 

Would your sister have craved salmon if she'd never encountered it? The fortresses are full of dorfs who crave stuff they've only heard of. I agree it would be rather realistic to have migrants from coastal settlements to come to a mountain fortress and pine for ocean fish, though.
DF shouldn't have a modern economy, given the time line, but even the 1400:ish had division of labor and trade. I agree economy and a trade network ought to address a fair bit of the availability problems, but that's a fair bit into the future.

[ldog]

They are going to grab the closest thing to eat or drink regardless of what they like. Just not worth worrying about it.

[Shonai_Dweller]

They are going to grab the closest thing to eat or drink regardless of what they like. Just not worth worrying about it.

It is worth worrying about if you care at all about the development of the game. Favorite foods are linked to the needs system, which makes dorfs inefficient if their unmet needs too past a certain point. Not too serious now, might be in the future.

On the other hand, are the food needs all that unrealistic? Dorf worlds are not very big. If we assume dorfs are from a world with a working trade system and boats moving around (as is planned, if not implemented yet), the chances of a dorf having eaten a luxury item that he everafter craves isn't too unrealistic, is it?

[PatrikLundell]

Dorfs are actually capable of grabbing available favorite food (or drink) items, but only if they're raw. They never (or very rarely: I've seen one report of an instance to the contrary) go out of their way to grab available meals with favorite ingredients.

When there's a working trade system that makes food available to dorfs to try in the first place, and then buy again in the second is available I don't have a problem with wanting luxuries (although nobles should probably be pickier than haulers).

I interpret Idog's comment to refer to the running of your fortress: I agree that food preferences are currently not a significant fortress concern. I also agree with Shonai_Dweller in that it's of interest from a development point of view.

[ldog]

Well of course it's about the running of the fort; nothing else matters.

As far as their exposure or not to "exotic" foods, dorfs don't spring out of nowhere into your fort (except for babies), those 80 year old migrants have probably seen a thing or two.