yeah I agree that something more realistic needs to be done with the cooking system, perhaps replacing the more vague 'easy', 'fine', and 'lavish' meals with real recipes
perhaps have a few generic choices such as "bread", "pies" "biscuits" etc which would have similiar but variable sets of ingredients.
eg. "bread" would require one type of wheat flour, and one type of beer or ale (like any dwarf makes bread with water!) but the specific end product would vary slightly on ingredients eg dwarven wheat flour and dwarven ale/beer makes cave bread, wheras whip vine flour and longland beer would make vine loaves. this would in essence be a bit like ordering "rock crafts" and then getting crowns, scepters, idols etc. as a result
Dwarven likes or dislikes could change to reflect this, perhaps changing from liking raw foods (ie, "likes plump helmets") to liking something more specific (ie "likes helmet pie") or just having the dwarf like any recipe that includes his favourite ingredient(s)
Nobles should also definately make mandates or demands for their favourite foods, demands for more platinum statues after youve just finished making their 284th seems a little silly, but "moar roast dragon wings with a side order of fire imp jelly" is something I can envisage the countess asking for.
also perhaps have some more specific and specialised recipes in addition to more generic ones, these could require rare or exotic ingredients and would be the favourites of nobles. eg 'Dwarven Rock loaf' would need dwarven wheat flour, dwarven ale, and lime (milled from chalk or limestone)