Spoils & Preserves
Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2015 12:17 pmI'm hoping this doesn't fall under "Item Decay", as I am not talking about equipment but just food items and things that should be Perishable.
I think stored food products should have a "Shelf Life", instead of lasting until the cook is ready to come about and cook up a swarm of food, and then store that until people come around eventually to feast.
Some example lifespans off the top of my head:
Raw meat goes rotten after 3 days
Fruits, Berries and Vegetables can go a week before spoiling
Grains that are unprocessed can last 2 weeks before going bad (Corn left on the cob, oats on the stalk)
Milk having a shelf life of 5 days to a week before spoiling.
Along with this, food should have a sort of freshness buff/debuff. What I had in mind was something like:
Hot & Ready, foods eaten within an hour of being prepared confer an extra 20% feasting bonus, food like this can only be prepared from fresh ingredients that have not decayed in any way (unless otherwise specified).
Fresh, foods eaten within the first day of being cooked are the same as they are now, no bonus, no penalty.
Sour foods provide 30% less points as restoration foods or points for feasting.
Foods cooked and then ignored for 2 days go rotten, but can still be eaten for 50% of their point values, and giving the poor soul a case of food poisoning and insanity.
Speaking of food poisoning, it should work mush like mushroom poisoning except the character has to regularly stop to lurch and hurl, and if you max out your food poisoning you die.
With an aging system in place, food then should have means of expanding its shelf life for those still intent on hoarding and stuffing their cupboards. For this I propose the methods of Smoking, Salting, Dehydration, Canning/Jarring, and for those who can find enough ice or snow, perhaps an ice box as primitive refrigeration. Also perhaps all foods should decay colder during a cold snap as nature takes the place of a natural fridge.
Salted Meats, Veggies and fruits should retain their previous uses, a salted steak could still be cooked into a Sunday Steak, or split into salted cuts or used as any means it could be used for before salting. Salting should be a quick means for making things last a little longer in the storehouse.
Dehydrated foods are ready to eat meats for the road. Jerky, Trail Mix, Fruit Chips, Corn could be dried for future popcorn. These foods would mostly be good for restoration foods as they're rarely something you see at a dinner table.
Smoking meats should provide better longevity than salting, and will also be the means to high quality jerky when smoked with hickory or applewood chips. Smoking is already in place but hardly seems to be that wonderful of a feature unless you are gambling for black pearls.
Canned Foods are mostly condiments and fillings. Canned fruit and pumpkins can be used to make sweet pies when cooked with sugar, tomatoes can be cooked and canned to make a sauce or soup base, and many other garden vegetables could be jarred with Vinegar to make all sorts of pickles. Pickles and Preserves should be it's own gluttony category.
Ice Box A container that can only be built indoors or in a cave using bricks, clay, pig iron and nails, it is able to stop food from aging while it is loaded with "Fuel", the fuel either being snowballs or some other cold-stuff that could be released and only harvest-able during the coldsnap.
For Players --- There is a good side to all this rot.
Wine, Cheese, Beer, Vinegar
There is a current lack of booze to be had in Salem, and everyone loves cheese. If we're going to have to deal with the bad side of foods getting old, it seems reasonable to give the good side of it as well.
The basics, wine and beer both require time to age in a clean environment, Barrels should work fine so long as they are cleaned out with lime/soap/vinegar first to prevent unwanted bacteria from ruining everything.
Speaking of bacteria, for all the drinks here we need yeast, which should be either or both purchasable in town or cultured naturally, but naturally culturing yeast is bound to rot a bunch of batches before you meet success with your first beverage and residue of yeast in the barrel which could be scraped and reused.
Yeast should also be used in the making of any rising breads, which means you could bounce yeast cultures between beer and bread, and perhaps even as you brew and bake you could increase the purity of your colonies yeast cultures.
When we get cows, I'd also love to see the addition of Cheese, which would require cooking milk with either vinegar or a rennet of some sorts, which would require the addition of more giblets to be harvested from animals.
Hit this threads up with thoughts, suggestions, or things I missed. Times to rotting are all approximated from what I /feel/ is right and I don't take any blame for anyone who chooses to cook and eat a steak that's been at room temp for 3 days. (Speaking of spoiling meat, we should have to hang animals before butchering them to get the juice out of them.)
I think stored food products should have a "Shelf Life", instead of lasting until the cook is ready to come about and cook up a swarm of food, and then store that until people come around eventually to feast.
Some example lifespans off the top of my head:
Raw meat goes rotten after 3 days
Fruits, Berries and Vegetables can go a week before spoiling
Grains that are unprocessed can last 2 weeks before going bad (Corn left on the cob, oats on the stalk)
Milk having a shelf life of 5 days to a week before spoiling.
Along with this, food should have a sort of freshness buff/debuff. What I had in mind was something like:
Hot & Ready, foods eaten within an hour of being prepared confer an extra 20% feasting bonus, food like this can only be prepared from fresh ingredients that have not decayed in any way (unless otherwise specified).
Fresh, foods eaten within the first day of being cooked are the same as they are now, no bonus, no penalty.
Sour foods provide 30% less points as restoration foods or points for feasting.
Foods cooked and then ignored for 2 days go rotten, but can still be eaten for 50% of their point values, and giving the poor soul a case of food poisoning and insanity.
Speaking of food poisoning, it should work mush like mushroom poisoning except the character has to regularly stop to lurch and hurl, and if you max out your food poisoning you die.
With an aging system in place, food then should have means of expanding its shelf life for those still intent on hoarding and stuffing their cupboards. For this I propose the methods of Smoking, Salting, Dehydration, Canning/Jarring, and for those who can find enough ice or snow, perhaps an ice box as primitive refrigeration. Also perhaps all foods should decay colder during a cold snap as nature takes the place of a natural fridge.
Salted Meats, Veggies and fruits should retain their previous uses, a salted steak could still be cooked into a Sunday Steak, or split into salted cuts or used as any means it could be used for before salting. Salting should be a quick means for making things last a little longer in the storehouse.
Dehydrated foods are ready to eat meats for the road. Jerky, Trail Mix, Fruit Chips, Corn could be dried for future popcorn. These foods would mostly be good for restoration foods as they're rarely something you see at a dinner table.
Smoking meats should provide better longevity than salting, and will also be the means to high quality jerky when smoked with hickory or applewood chips. Smoking is already in place but hardly seems to be that wonderful of a feature unless you are gambling for black pearls.
Canned Foods are mostly condiments and fillings. Canned fruit and pumpkins can be used to make sweet pies when cooked with sugar, tomatoes can be cooked and canned to make a sauce or soup base, and many other garden vegetables could be jarred with Vinegar to make all sorts of pickles. Pickles and Preserves should be it's own gluttony category.
Ice Box A container that can only be built indoors or in a cave using bricks, clay, pig iron and nails, it is able to stop food from aging while it is loaded with "Fuel", the fuel either being snowballs or some other cold-stuff that could be released and only harvest-able during the coldsnap.
For Players --- There is a good side to all this rot.
Wine, Cheese, Beer, Vinegar
There is a current lack of booze to be had in Salem, and everyone loves cheese. If we're going to have to deal with the bad side of foods getting old, it seems reasonable to give the good side of it as well.
The basics, wine and beer both require time to age in a clean environment, Barrels should work fine so long as they are cleaned out with lime/soap/vinegar first to prevent unwanted bacteria from ruining everything.
Speaking of bacteria, for all the drinks here we need yeast, which should be either or both purchasable in town or cultured naturally, but naturally culturing yeast is bound to rot a bunch of batches before you meet success with your first beverage and residue of yeast in the barrel which could be scraped and reused.
Yeast should also be used in the making of any rising breads, which means you could bounce yeast cultures between beer and bread, and perhaps even as you brew and bake you could increase the purity of your colonies yeast cultures.
When we get cows, I'd also love to see the addition of Cheese, which would require cooking milk with either vinegar or a rennet of some sorts, which would require the addition of more giblets to be harvested from animals.
Hit this threads up with thoughts, suggestions, or things I missed. Times to rotting are all approximated from what I /feel/ is right and I don't take any blame for anyone who chooses to cook and eat a steak that's been at room temp for 3 days. (Speaking of spoiling meat, we should have to hang animals before butchering them to get the juice out of them.)
