Cooking and Food

[JErosion]

Between raiding houses along the coast and cleaning out pantries one can easily survive for some time at the coastal road, but for some reason i can't help but feel like i would like to be able to cook an actual meal in this game. Following hidden recipes in the game rewards you for taking the time and spending the ingredients. And allows you to make "Meal" that acts like those Military grade MREs that have a lot of calories so that once you chose to eat it it will fill you up until your full and then you can save the left overs for later. And Maybe add a temporary buff for the effort, like raising your body temperature. As silly as it seems, it would be another task that you could preform when going outside isn't an option or if its too late to run out.

When you start a fire at a stove, fireplace or campfire, lets have options to cook a proper meal based on the quality of the cooking device. If its a campfire you can only cook one thing at a time, but if its an indoor fireplace have two available slots to cook with. If its a proper stove have three. So you have the option to cook two or three pieces of meat at once. But wait you could even balance this with a Cooking Skill. When you first start out it would be best to cook one piece of meat at a time, the more you try to cook at once with a low skill the higher the chance you have to screw up. And instead of having a cooked piece of venison you might wind up with Undercooked Venison(with a higher risk of food poisoning), Overcooked Venison(that has less Calories) or Charred Venison pretty much a loss

However with the option to cook more than one thing at once opens the door to cook an actual meals and effectively craft yourself some higher quality food.

The Grocery List (to find around town)

Potatoes

Waxed Cheddar Cheese Block(which you can eat straight up or choose to "Harvest it" and breaking it into smaller wedges that decay faster)

Chicken stock (canned)

Vegetable soup (canned)

Chili powder (also used in crafting of a desperate anti wolf device)

Other Spices

Various other canned fruit(they can even be Pinnachle brand, Pinnachle Apples, Pinnachle Pears)

Coffee Beans

Like the various game meats, you'd have to cook a potato to eat it. And depending on the stove you could cook multiple potatoes or cook it with other ingredients. So in game it could be listed as POTATO(RAW) ===> POTATO(BAKED), but if you cooked POTATO(RAW)+CHEDDAR CHEESE(wedge) magic happens and you get CHEESY BAKED POTATO. Up the Ante at a really good stove, POTATO(RAW)+CHEDDAR CHEESE(wedge)+Meat of your choice ===> STUFFED POTATO

And just keep going with it. WOLF MEAT(RAW)+PORK AND BEANS+CHILI POWDER ===> WOLF CHILI

RABBIT MEAT(RAW)+CHICKEN STOCK ===> RABBIT SOUP, cook the Rabbit Soup a second time it turns into a RABBIT STEW

and of Course ROASTED COFFEE BEANS+LITER of Water, boom drinkable coffee

its a over simplification, but it would be fun and I bet a lot of you can think of other simple combinations that could be made out of limited suppies

[EternityTide]

It would put a use for those cooking pots that are everywhere ( I would love to be able the harvest those for scrap metal, since you can do it with the prybar, why not the pots?)

[Incariuz]

This is actually an idea I was thinking of, and hoping would get added in time. I find exploring and scavenging gets done so quick now that you end up sitting around doing nothing. Features like this would be nice just to give extra stuff to do so you're not always feeling inclined to just sleep to speed up time.

[JErosion]

And as an afterthought things like Spices, Chili Powder, Sugars(white and brown) Honey or salt. could work like tools do and degrade as they are used until they are gone

[elloco999]

It would put a use for those cooking pots that are everywhere ( I would love to be able the harvest those for scrap metal, since you can do it with the prybar, why not the pots?)

The reason you can't scrap those pots and pans you find everywhere is probably for balance purposes. You'd have tons of scrap metal to repair all you gear with, so no longer would you have to think about whether you're going to use your hatchet now or save it for later when you may really need it. You'll be using all your tools all the time because it will be easy to repair them.

[Burning Bridges]

An alternative suggestion would be to open up this and similar areas for modding, once the principles are in place. Having soups, teas and so on would be very nice but creating could be time consuming. That's why I think this is an area that the modding community is good for.

[Reece87]

Thanks dear for sharing these useful cooking tips on making delicious food. You know I just love cooking and I am planning to start cooking classes to teach this art to others. It will be a good idea I am sure!!

[ticklebur]

And as an afterthought things like Spices, Chili Powder, Sugars(white and brown) Honey or salt. could work like tools do and degrade as they are used until they are gone

I like the idea of chili powder.

Chili powder increases blood flow,

so maybe they could add some sort of buff system, that will increase your warmth whenever you've consumed some chili powder. I'm not talking much maybe 0,5 or 1 increase to temperature for 1 or 2 hours.

[brostoevsky]

I like this idea a lot. Currently the game gets a little boring once you have stocked up on a lot of meat and spend a few days just twiddling your thumbs (or in my case, gathering like 60 logs of firewood). I would love recipes and really anything else that gives me more to do in my "off" time in the game. I find myself making coffee in-game even though I don't need it, just because it's something to do.