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Food preservation: Drying food


TheKimster

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There's been a lot of discussion about canning, drying, and otherwise preserving foods in the past. I hope it's something we'll see at some point, but there's been no dev comment before.

 

What he said!

 

Of course we all want to see something like this in game, but with the effort to make the game harder and not easier, I doubt we'll see anything official anytime soon.

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There's been a lot of discussion about canning, drying, and otherwise preserving foods in the past. I hope it's something we'll see at some point, but there's been no dev comment before.

 

What he said!

 

Of course we all want to see something like this in game, but with the effort to make the game harder and not easier, I doubt we'll see anything official anytime soon.

 

I don't see why drying makes it so much easier. You still have to trap the food then cook it and worry about zombies. It is a help but it isn't like suggesting a nuke to kill zombies.It just makes things a bit more useful and adds a use to an overlooked feature. Plus not everything has to make it harder.

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I think in effort to make the game harder they need to look other places.
Not adding realistic and totally easy real life survival methods seems to go directly against what the game is about, i mean slicing fruits and veggies and hang them in on a rack isn't rocket science.

Since it is a zombie game i would really like so see more zombie stuff and some reasons to ever leave my walled off area, the only reasons to ever leave atm is zombie hunting for fun. 
I know there used to be wandering hordes, but that was before i bought the game.
 

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well i am on my 3rd month, and have 900 or so kill count on my unimployed slacker girl, i guarantee you there could land a nuke on my base and it would not attract any zombies. 

 

Dont get me wrong, the ability to make a area safe like that is one of the parts i really like with the game, but it somewhat just turns into a unrealistic farming simulator after this. 
The only way she is gonna die from here is of old age.  

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I have survived up to 300 something days without dying before my computer crashed and then i had to restart it all but there were plenty of close calls in the game. I mean i had build an amazing base and a farm too but i still worried about zombies. Every now and then i would get 1 or two but they don't come around as much. I do agree but they still do move, very slowly....

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Hey I am all for any type of food preservation, but since the devs have not mentioned anything about it in the last few years, I just don't expect it anytime soon.

 

Nobody is disputing that food preservation is realistic and feasible, I just don't think they'll add it anytime soon.

 

The devs have mentioned that a major focus going forward is making the game more challenging and they intend to do this in multiple ways. Unfortunately, allowing us to preserve food, however elaborate the process, is going to make the game more survivable.

 

This is simply my best guess and opinion, and honestly I hope that I am wrong.

 

I'd love to see some food preservation and also a feasible use for rotten food (not just a use for advanced cooks to added a measly amount of hunger reduction) such as composting.

 

Maybe someday...

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There have been several mods that have added food preservation to an extent, and while they do make the game more survivable, a surprising amount of time is still spent looting. Not for food to eat now, but for food and preservation supplies for later. If they would like to balance realism with challenge then spawn rates for effective preservation supplies would be a good place to start. Building up a stockpile would be a difficult and rewarding task. But I'd happily accept this feature even without any balancing, it's just one of those immersion things. Preserving food is just something that makes sense.

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I really do think this is a great idea, and in the devs case with them trying to make things harder, this is a story of How You Died. Everyone dies, and in all reality, a zombie apocalypse if done right, is pretty easy to survive. The main reason someone would die irl is because of their stupid mistakes, and well, that's whats happening right now. Also, dieing of old age is just as good an answer towards the story of how you died, you still died in the end.

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  • 9 months later...

Could also add in boxes of salt. Who doesn't have more than just salt and pepper shakers in their house?

You fill those shakers with something.

 

Boxes of salt, which can be used to salt cure meat and fish.

 

Cold and hot smoking is also something people do in their backyard

 

Set up a smoker, then drill a hole in it, lead a pipe into a seperate container with racks, and add cold packs to it.

Cold packs are already in the game. So is salt, we just need more of it. or a way to collect and empty the current salt into a larger container.

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I fully endorse the idea of food preservation and the like. While I understand that you aren't meant to live until old age takes you, there's always the desire to improve the quality of life. You can already preserve food with jars, so I see no reason not to be able to smoke/salt that rabbit you just diced up and save it for a stew on a rainy night a few months in.

Of course the zombie apocalypse is supposed to kill you, and in many cases it will be the zombies themselves that do you in. In the meantime, though, I would personally be taking every measure possible to elongate my own timetable.

It would be pretty cool as well in multiplayer to find someone's player crafted cabin in the middle of the woods, and after taking out the zombified tenant, find a store of preserved foods. From a RP perspective, it would seem even more grim: in spite of all their preparations, everyone eventually succumbs to circumstance.

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  • 1 month later...

 

I like the idea. I am for it.

If you like the idea like the post.

 

Why?  It's not like that's the only possible way to show your support for an idea, and some people hit their like quotas before they're finished on the forums.

 

Back to the subject of drying foods, I believe this function is designed for meats, right?  I know that you can dry fruits too but there aren't a whole lot of fruits in-game that you can grow as a crop, so unless you want to dry stuff straight out of the fridge it seems like only meat will benefit from this feature.

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Maybe if the drying process was linked to cooking, and low cooking skill would mean less hunger return then the fresh thing?  Then it would not make the game so much easier, but add dept.

 

Also, If malnutrition was to come in play, it could have a lessened health effect due to (sligthly) lower vitamins (mostly fruits and veggies), or too much salt (for the meat).  That would balance things further.

 

Also, that may be a suggestion that apt modders may consider... I understand that there is one or more mod that add dry food, but not it's crafting.  Unfortunately, that can't be me as I don't know how to code (except Basic, way way back before VB... and my code was rudymentory at best).

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I am personally classicaly trained in cooking, and one aspect of gastronomy is garde manger which traditionally means basically food preservation and comes from medieval Steward position in courts.

 

IMO it would be awesome if they added more garde-manger concepts from real life and history to the game but a lot of it would probably involve something like hunting big game and not squirrels.

 

Smoking could be added to increase even further the shelflife of foodstuff that is fatty like pork belly

 

AFAIK sun-drying wouldn't work in Kentucky. Too wet. Probably somewhere else in the US. But dry-curing and many other methods would.

 

Here's how it might work IMO even though it isn't 100% realistic on some small things:

 

Larger animals when introduced when butchered drop itens that correspond to parts of it. For instance, when killing a pig it drops 2 raw legs of ham, 20 intestines, 1 raw pork belly, 2 raw front legs, raw shoulder, raw chump, raw loin, raw spare rib, 10 pork fat (unusable unless cooked into pork lard), 2 pork cheeks, 1 pork liver, etc.

 

Leg of ham + knife = 10 pork steaks

 

pork steak + knife = cubes of pork meat

 

cubes of pork meat + knife = chopped pork meat

 

Pork fat + water + cooking pot + heat source OR pork fat + frying pan + heat source = pork lard

 

Pork lard + cubes of pork meat + frying pan + heat source + canning jar = Pork confit (non-perishable)

 

chopped pork meat + intestines + water + cooking pot + heat source = Cooked sausage (extended shelf life)

 

Leg of ham + 4 salt OR Leg of ham + 2 salt + 2 sugar = Dry-Curing ham.

 

After 6 weeks in game the "Dry-Curing Ham" becomes "Dry-Cured Ham" (like Prosciutto, Jamón, Country Ham, etc) and is safe to eat with constant dice rolls based on player cooking to determinate if the curing process failed during the curing time. If it did, "Dry-Curing Ham" becomes spoiled meat.

 

chopped pork meat + intestines + 1 salt + curing salt/saltpeter (optional) = Dry-curing salami (becomes salami. Small chance of botulism if not using curing salt or saltpeter based on cooking would be awesome)

 

Pork belly + Water + 3 salt OR Pork belly + water + 2 salt + 1 sugar OR no water at all but with +1 salt = Curing bacon

 

Instead of the current "food preservation" recipes which are silly, new ones could be:

 

Cabbage + Salt + canning jar = Sourkraut

 

Vegetables + vinegar + canning jar + heat source + cooking pot = Pickled Vegetable

 

Vegetables + Salt + canning jar + water = Fermented vegetable

 

Hard boiled eggs + salt + water + canning jar = fermented eggs

 

Hard boiled eggs + vinegar + canning jar = pickled eggs

 

Raw fish + 2 salt = Salted fish

 

Raw fish + 1 salt + 1 water = Fermented fish

 

Raw fish + oil or lard + heat source = Fish confit

 

Strawberries + Sugar + canning jar + cooking pot + heat source = Strawberry jam

 

Fruits + vinegar + sugar + spices (optional) + heat source + canning jar + cooking pot = (fruit used name) Chutney

 

Vegetables + vinegar + sugar + spices (optional) + heat source + cooking pot + canning jar = (vegetable used name) Relish

 

New food items could also be introduced into this system. Almost any food stuff can be preserved IRL.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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