Print

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

[zazzazzz]

You should be able to discover salt and mine it, to use as food preservative.

additional idea - if a flood comes into contact with an open salt vein, the water after that point becomes salty, and leaves salty earth out of which nothing will grow until cleared by farmer dwarf. If river comes into contact with salt, all downriver squares could become undrinkable and leave salty earth squares when flooding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_mine

[Toady One]

Weird, I read that article yesterday in preparation for the dye stuff I'm doing, since salt seems to be used in conjuction with alum sometimes when you use it as a mordant, and also when you use alum + salt to taw leather, which I'm thinking of throwing in as an alternative to using bark for tanning (once tree processing can produce bark).  I guess alum comes from heat-treating/washing alunite, though I read things about romans supposedly using volcanic vents at the mining site and so on...  perhaps the kiln is in order for dwarves.  Alum can also be used as a styptic to stop minor bleeding, though I doubt that'll be much use since it seems to be mainly for things like shaving cuts.

Of course, salt is more important as a preservative...  but that means making the food in your stockpile rot too?  I wonder if that's too harsh.

Also -- was wool-wax (wool-grease/lanolin) actually used for anything back in the day (as an emollient/ointment)?  I couldn't find anything that wasn't PR crap from cosmetic companies.  The reason I'm curious is because wool, as a common precursor to yarn, needs to be washed first (often with soap, which could be used for this) or the dye won't take to the material, and the wool-wax/lanolin/wtvr is a byproduct of that which is now used in cosmetics/ointments.

[ October 07, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Kjoery]

It probably wouldn't be a good idea to make salt mineable (and thus in finite amounts), and also essential to food storage, as it would run out once you get a large enough fortress, and get frustrating.

On the other hand, if there was an infinite supply, then it would have to go through some production chain, which seems unnessisary, considering how many other chains there already are.

It could, however, be used in conjunction with the cooking skill to make better meals (mabe even get some spices coming in from caravans, too).

[Captain_Action]

Salt could be something that the dwarves need to import! As it stands now there is nearly zero reasons to import anything.

[Pacho]

I was thinking the same thing as Captain_Action.  I think the production of salt is better suited for another race who live in an area where it can actually occur.  Mountains just don't seem to be the place for it.

[Toady One]

Halite mines in mountain sides seem reasonably common.  The stuff has had a long time to be moved around.  Still, it doesn't have to be in every mountain.  Most rocks/gems/metals shouldn't be in most mountains in any case.

[DimmurWyrd]

Just an aside to the lanolin/wool-wax thing... It was commonly used for waterproofing of clothing/leather/tarps and as a lubricant in wooden ships (grease certain lines and such to reduce friction) also it does have antibiotic properties and was used in ointments as you surmised.

Hope that helps a little  

[Capntastic]

Furthermore, flax seeds produce linseed oil which is used in painting and whatnot.  It can also be used in producing linoleum- which can be used to make linocut blocks for printing images.

[ October 07, 2006: Message edited by: Capntastic ]

[mausmausmausmaus]

I like the idea of seasonings, as it could augment the food prep system as well as give you a reason to import things, such as a certain spices that hugely boost food quality.

It would also provide another thing to process plants into, which is gravy.

[Captain Mayday]

I actually watched a show called 'worst jobs of the middle ages' a couple weeks ago, and removing the grease from wool was one of the jobs. Seems in order to do this, they would stomp up and down on it in a vat, sort of like crushing grapes, except instead of grapes, there's wool, and human urine.

[mausmausmausmaus]

stock(p)ile -> dwarf (p)ee

[Toady One]

Yeah, urine came up in several of the jobs I looked up yesterday.  You can also use it to make some dyes color-fast and to prepare hides for tanning, as well as a billion other things.  At the same time...  perhaps we won't go there, since there are substitutes for these things.

[Abyssal Squid]

We could just pretend to have an unlimited amount of it available at all times, accessable everywhere.  After all, everybody carries a small supply at all times, and this supply can only increase.

[Aquillion]

I think that making fancy requirements to preserve food in your fortresses stockpiles would be too harsh, mainly because even as it stands the lack of job priorities will occasionally result in food rotting outside your stockpile as dwarves ignore it.  If they had to salt it, too, I could easily see huge amounts of food rotting away while the priorities sort themselves out.

But perhaps salt could be used in the production of rations for adventurers, military dwarves, and (eventually) long-distance military rations.  That would be realistic and would provide a use for salt within food that wouldn't be absolutely do-now-or-die.

Hmm...  salt is also supposedly useful against spirits and undead... perhaps we could eventually get some sort of 'dwarven mystic' who has few or no real magical abilities of their own, but knows lots of old dwarven lore like that and is able to take advantage of the weak points in creatures and curses by, say, throwing salt at them.

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>
But perhaps salt could be used in the production of rations for adventurers, military dwarves, and (eventually) long-distance military rations.  That would be realistic and would provide a use for salt within food that wouldn't be absolutely do-now-or-die.</STRONG>

Yeah!  Having salt be mined or imported for the sole purpose of having a kitchen make 'rations' would be neat for when long distance dwarf missions go on.