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[Yag Alone]

Hi there, long time no see...

I'm quite fed up with those boring "plump helmet roast", and even more of their bland descriptions "This is a stack of 42 finely-prepared plump helmet roast. The ingredients are exceptionally minced plump helmet, well-minced plump helmet, superiorly minced plump helmetand minced plump helmet."

So I tried to figure another kind of cooking system, based on a classification of each ingredients :

- the MAIN ingredient is the main ingredient of the meal (gee...), giving it's name to the meal.
One and only one MAIN ingredient should be present in the meal. No liquid ingredient should be in this category (it will solve some annoying and very persistent bug...)
- BASE ingredients are major ingredients that define the kind of meal. Flour will make bread and pies, alcohols will be used in various stews...
- SECONDARY ingredients are additionnal ingredients similar to the main one, but liquid ingredients can be member of this class
- SPICE ingredients are only used for flavoring. They will add flavoring adjectives to the meal.

Furthermore, I added some "mixing rules" on the various kind of meals. The lavish meals will require a very narrow range of ingredients while the easy meal will accept anything as long as at least one MAIN ingredient is provided.

Some examples :
* Easy meal : Must contain one MAIN ingredient and any one of the other kind of ingredient.

Code: [Select]

MAIN ingredient :  kitten meat
BASE ingredient :  kitten intestines
The BASE ingredient will define the kind of meal ("intestines" -> sausages) and the MAIN ingredient the actual content (kitten meat)
This will produce a "kitten meat sausage", and its description will be

Code: [Select]

"This is a kitten meat sausage. It is made of exceptionally roasted kitten meat masterfully crammed into kitten intestines."

* Fine Meal : Must contain one MAIN ingredient, any one of the other ingredient and either one SECONDARY or a SPICE ingredient.

Code: [Select]

MAIN ingredient :  wild strawberry
BASE ingredient :  Longland flour
SPICE ingredient : dwarven sugar

-> This is a sweet wild strawberry pie. It is made of cleaned wild strawberry baked with Longland flour. It is flavored with a hint of melted dwarven sugar.

*Lavish Meal. Must contain one MAIN ingredient, one BASE ingredient, one SPICE ingredient and either one SECONDARY or another SPICE ingredient.

Code: [Select]

MAIN ingredient :      kitten brain
BASE ingredient :      gutter cruor
SECONDARY ingredient : muck root
SPICE ingredient :     cow cheese

-> This is a cheesy kitten brain pungent stew. It is made of superiorly broiled kitten brain well cooked in gutter cruor. It also contains superiorly sliced muck root, and is flavored with a hint of exceptionally grated cow cheese.

If you want to try some other recipes, I made a convenient spreadsheet (Excell 2K without macros, should be useable even with OO)
http://www.petit-creux.fr/f589dc6/How%20to%20serve%20dwarves.xls
Use the dropmenus on the blue colored cells to select the various options, the name and descriptions of the resulting meal should be automatically updated.

Feel free to share the weirdest combo you may find...

"This is a soothing plump helmet man tissue witch stew. It is made of prepared plump helmet man tissue cooked in mog juice. It also contains boiled kitten eye, and is flavored with a hint of minced valley herb."

"This is a plump plump plump helmet jam. It is made of minced plump helmet candied in dwarven syrup. It is flavored with a hint of mashed plump helmet and mashed plump helmet"

* Advantages :
- Names and description will be funnier and feel more unique than the usual "<whatever> roast".
- Cooking lavish meals will be marginally more difficult, and will require more than an unique kind of raw ingredient.
- Not very difficult to code (I hope...)
- Farewell 100% liquid meal related bugs.

* Disavantage :
- Impossible to tell the level of a meal by its name any longer (is there a point?)
- Some combinations are... too weird.

PS : Sorry for my poor english :s

[Auto Slaughter]

I like this idea.  I think that there also should be more spices, as rare trade goods.

[Yag Alone]

Heh... I should learn the difference between "edit" and "quote" one day :s

[Shade-o]

This is very good.

[Meta]

Intéressant et complet. Beau travail !
Interesting and complete. Nice work!

You should add this suggestion on the DF Eternal Suggestion Voting page.

[Yag Alone]

You should add this suggestion on the DF Eternal Suggestion Voting page.

C'est fait...
Erm... It's done

[AngleWyrm]

I vote for this! Your suggestion is now at #160 with three votes.

[Rowanas]

I'll lend my considerable weight to this as well.

Very nice idea, but I can see it getting annoying when you don't have enough of main ingredients to make anything but shed loads of spices and secondary ingredients, also, what about foods that are more than one type? Flour, for one, is a very common base for meals (bread, cakes, pies, fryjacks) but also a common addition to some foods that can be made without flour, but will be enhanced or altered by the addition of flour (brownie recipes, battered foods). How will the game decide which slot it fills, if you specify more than one? If it fulfills many roles, as flour does, it will still be possible to have floury floured flour Will dwarves use multiple type foods in preference or deference to other foods? What about other multiple type foods?

To pick on flour for another gripe, you can't make anything out of flour without liquid, so will dwarves go and fetch the nearest liquid under this scheme? If you've forbidden all alcohol for cooking will the cook go and get water? Blood? Forgotten beast ichor? Will each food have to have the specific other foods it can go with defined in the raws, or only a few one-offs?

tl;dr
I like the idea, it'll add flavour (ahem) to dwarven cooking, but there are important questions to be asked.

[harborpirate]

Those problems are relatively easy to solve.
Just require the system to create meals in such a way that a particular ingredient can only be used fulfill one "slot" of a meal.
As for would dwarves go get a liquid ingredient if they used flour, yes! We need a use for barrels of animal blood and junk like that.

The hardest part would be what a meal would be called. Ideally, something like Flour + Cat Meat would be called "Battered Fried Cat Meat". The original sausages example is a good one as well. Where would these rules be stored, in the raws? And in what format?

[AngleWyrm]

Cat meat + dwarven flour = "This is a kitten meat bread. It is made of exceptionally roasted kitten meat masterfully baked with dwarven wheat flour."   The reverse (dwarven flour + cat meat) isn't supported in the rules, because dwarven wheat flour doesn't appear as a primary ingredient. It could be possible to define it though, so that instead of kitten meat bread, we get a breaded kitten meat roast.               

We can probably assume the use of water without requiring it as an ingredient.

On the spreadsheet, something that could be better is that instead of having the secondary ingredient read "It also contains..." have the ingredient "and..." or "with..." so it's all one sentence. 'And' for base and 'With' for secondary might work.

Also, Flour in the example spreadsheet can only appear as a Base ingredient, so it isn't possible to have a flour, floury flour.

Suggestion is now at #119 with five votes.

[Footkerchief]

Ingredient-based cooking systems have been frequently suggested:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60681.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=48847.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=48068.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=46121.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=41293.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=34091.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=32223.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=29992.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=28964.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=27501.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=26595.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=26486.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25450.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25425.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=20434.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=19427.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6021.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3892.0

Spoiler: tags (click to show/hide)

cooking cook cookbook kitchen recipe ingredient prepared meal spice condiment cuisine

[AngleWyrm]

And now it's on the eternal suggestion voting page, titled "Cooking Overhaul." Please vote for it if you like the idea.

Also, great links, but the last one titled "needs some spice" doesn't have to do with cooking.

[Footkerchief]

Also, great links, but the last one titled "needs some spice" doesn't have to do with cooking.

Whoops, thanks.

[Yag Alone]

Lots of questions, nice to see that my puny idea is so popular

I'll lend my considerable weight to this as well.

Very nice idea, but I can see it getting annoying when you don't have enough of main ingredients to make anything but shed loads of spices and secondary ingredients

This is actually a feature, in order to force some diversity in the food production chain.

also, what about foods that are more than one type? Flour, for one, is a very common base for meals (bread, cakes, pies, fryjacks) but also a common addition to some foods that can be made without flour, but will be enhanced or altered by the addition of flour (brownie recipes, battered foods). How will the game decide which slot it fills, if you specify more than one? If it fulfills many roles, as flour does, it will still be possible to have floury floured flour Will dwarves use multiple type foods in preference or deference to other foods? What about other multiple type foods?

Flour is also used as a thickening ingredient in a lot of sauces, this is quite a versatile ingredient
Multiple use of the same ingredient is still an issue, refer to my second example about a triple plump meal. However, this issue should be reduced compared to the current system.

To pick on flour for another gripe, you can't make anything out of flour without liquid, so will dwarves go and fetch the nearest liquid under this scheme? If you've forbidden all alcohol for cooking will the cook go and get water? Blood? Forgotten beast ichor? Will each food have to have the specific other foods it can go with defined in the raws, or only a few one-offs?

Well, as said by AngleWyrm, the use of water can be implied...

I like the idea, it'll add flavour (ahem) to dwarven cooking, but there are important questions to be asked.

Thanks. It was just an idea for a fast improvement (no change on the basic of the current cooking system, just a few constraints to add on the selection of the various ingredients to use, and improvement of the naming system), but I know it will need some refining.

Where would these rules be stored, in the raws? And in what format?

I thought of a few additionnal tags in the raws, with a format similar to :
[COOK_INGRED:<type>:<meal name/adjective>:<action verb>]
If you take a look at the spreadsheet, the "raws" tab contains all the values for such tags. The meal name and descriptions are then generated using "simple" formulas.

[Wyrm]

Kentucy Fried Kitten: We Do Kitten Right! 

I think emitting the description would be duck soup, provided it is broken down correctly. I identify two to three basic parts: the whole dish declaration ("This is a pickle kitten sammich."), the description of how the main ingredient has been prepared in the base ingredient ("It is excellently sliced kitten meat proficiently placed between two pieces of dwarven bread."), followed by a merged description of the secondary and spice ingredients ("It also contains sliced cave tomatoes, and is flavored with a hint of exceptionally chopped dwarvish pickles.") If only a secondary ingredient is included, we end at the comma, changing to a period. If only a spice is included, we omit "also contains ..., and".

The base ingredient is a little more complicated, as we can specify a whole slew of possible ways to include the main ingredient with the base. Therefore, the base preparation verb needs to be a verbal phrase: "placed between two pieces of". That way, it can be qualified with a proficiency.

Voila.

- Some combinations are... too weird.

They are dwarves.