Frontier Cooking or Why carry a pot? What about a skillet?

[UTC-10]

tl;dr The current set of recipes for Frontier Cooking while nice do not have the flexibility to encourage a character to carry a weighty pot and/or skillet on his travels.  Weight tends to be at a premium so why carry a pot or skillet on the chance one finds the right ingredients so the current recipes could be used?

 

If a survivor already routinely carried a pot along on their wanderings that is one thing, but for everyone else one can ask "why carry a pot"?

The current pot-based recipes revolve around stews which require meat, broth, and Old Mill Flour.  Lack any one of the latter two ingredients and the pot is useless for Frontier Cooking (of course the pot can be used to cook the meat and it grants a slightly shorter cooking time and a long time to burn).  

The stew recipes should be split into two or three tiers which depending on the ingredients (other than the meat or fish) would affect the final product.  

Tier 1.  

Meat and water into a pot and simmer until tender.  This basic stew (I don't cook so don't throw the pot at me) then provides for calories, perhaps some hydration, and a hot meal.  The leftovers can be reheated later using a pot, unless the devs decide to allow a recycled can as big enough for a "serving", to allow for a hot meal later.  This would also allow for something that the game largely lacks at the basic level namely the ability to have a hot meal as opposed to a hot drink from existing natural resources.  

Tier 2. 

Meat and broth into a pot and cooked until done.  The result is similar to that of Tier 1 with maybe additional calories derived from the broth component.  The ability to heat the stew later for a hot meal would also be available.  

Tier 3.

Meat, broth, and Old Mill Flour into a pot and cooked until done.  At this tier the secondary effects, both pro and con, as shown in the current Frontier Cooking recipes come into play.  Otherwise the ability to have a hot meal later would also apply.  

The above set of tiers is just my brainstorming how such a structure could be set up.  The point being that by having a lowest level and pretty readily craftable meal that has some benefits that would help the character would make Frontier Cooking and carrying a pot at least more attractive.  

Skillet?

It just occurred to me that skillets might be problematic as most of the recipes would be for pies requiring cooking oil and Old Mill Flour.  

Perhaps a skillet could be used in the same manner as a cooking surface with the additional benefit when cooking most meats that tallow could be harvested and could act as a substitute for cooking oil.  This needs to be thought out more.  But maybe has some possibilities.  

To limit the accumulation of tallow it might, by dev fiat, go bad and become unusable for cooking rather quickly.  This could be modified if the devs decided to implement some use for tallow such as the often requested candles but this was not suggested for that express purpose only as a possible future development. 
 

If a survivor already routinely carried a pot along on their wanderings that is one thing, but for everyone else one can ask "why carry a pot"?

The current pot-based recipes revolve around stews which require meat, broth, and Old Mill Flour.  Lack any one of the latter and the pot is useless for Frontier Cooking (of course the pot can be used to cook the meat and it grants a slightly shorter cooking time and a long time to burn).  

The stew recipes should be split into two or three tiers which depending on the ingredients (other than the meat or fish) would affect the final product.  

Tier 1.  

Meat and water into a pot and simmer until tender.  This basic stew (I don't cook so don't throw the pot at me) then provides for calories, perhaps some hydration, and a hot meal.  The leftovers can be reheated later, using a pot unless the devs decide to allow a recycled can as big enough for a "serving" to allow for a hot meal later.  This would also allow for something that the game largely lacks at the basic level namely the ability to have a hot meal as opposed to a hot drink.  

Tier 2. 

Meat and broth into a pot and cooked until done.  The result is similar to that of Tier 1 with maybe additional calories derived from the broth component.  The ability to heat the stew later for a hot meal would also be available.  

Tier 3.

Meat, broth, and Old Mill Flour into a pot and cooked until done.  At this tier the secondary effects, both pro and con, as shown in the current Frontier Cooking recipe come into play.  Otherwise the ability to have a hot meal later would also apply.  

The above set of tiers is just my brainstorming how such a structure could be set up.  The point being that by having a lowest level and pretty readily craftable meal that has some benefits that would help the character would make Frontier Cooking and carrying a pot at least more attractive.  

Skillet?

It just occurred to me that skillets might be problematic as most of the recipes would be for pies requiring cooking oil and Old Mill Flout.  

Perhaps a skillet could be used in the same manner as a cooking surface with the additional benefit when cooking most meats that tallow could be harvested and could act as a substitute for cooking oil.  This needs to be thought out more.  But maybe has some possibilities.  

To limit the accumulation of tallow it might, by dev fiat, go bad and become unusable for cooking rather quickly.  This could be modified if the devs decided to implement some use for tallow such as the often requested candles but this was not suggested for that express purpose but only as a possible future development. 

 

[UTC-10]

Oh my god, I mucked up.  Sigh.  😓

[FlamingFuball]

I don't think there needs to be a reason to carry pots and pans with you everywhere you go from a cooking standpoin. Leave them at home in your base and do your cooking there before you set out on journeys. But then again, I fit into the camp of survivors who always carried a pot for making water.

[RossBondReturns]

My go to is a pot and a can...has been for awhile.

Adding a skillet to that...sure, why not.

Not really a big deal for me.

[UTC-10]

If anyone routinely carried the pot with them then there would be no need to change other than maybe now taking the skillet as well.  

For anyone else, the lack of options (recipes that did not have the same gate keeper ingredient) might disincentivize doing so as a matter of routine.  

I know that it does for me.  The trade-off (I am in Pilgrim so that skews the consideration) does not favor carrying the pot and/or the skillet at this time.  See what  happens.  

[UTC-10]

I did find out that the skillet can be used to make up to 1.0 liter of water at a time.  It does have some utility when parallel making water and cooking a venison steak.