# Cooking from rotten food
**URL:** https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302
**Category:** The Drawing Board
**Created:** [May 18, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302 "2013-05-18T20:42:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@mycroftxxx](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/mycroftxxx)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 1:54am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/21 "2013-05-24T01:54:54Z")
[quote=“i2amroy, post:19, topic:1302”]As of the current dev version:
Canning is possible
Vacuum sealing is possible
Cooking rotten food yields rotten ingredients with slight freshening (so slightly rotten -\> slightly good but long been rotten -\> rotten).
IIRC then two of the three are also already in .5 (canning and vacuum sealing).[/quote]
That’s probably the best possible solution. Cooking _does_ let you use slightly older foodstuffs and makes them last longer. Also, a lot of food that we would consider “rotten” (especially meats) is still edible, just not as safely as a modern person would consider acceptable. Hanging a cleaned animal corpse to “season” for a few days to soften the meat and improve flavor was a pretty common practice for a lot of history.
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### Author:  [@Justice](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Justice)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/22 "2013-05-24T03:10:33Z")
> [@Ferodaktyl](#):
>
> Actually you can can fruits/veggies very very very simple. Put them in a glass jar with a screwing (?!) lid, add water, sugar or salt or vinegar, screw the lid on, boil. After it gets cold, it will autoseal the lid by creating negative pressure inside the jar.
^ This. Canning requires boiling, then cooling, using a sturdy container that’s able to seal.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/23 "2013-05-24T03:22:22Z")
Quite, however I assumed canning happened because the boiling water brought the rubberized seal to melting point. Expanding the food inside of the jar and sealing it, thus creating a negative pressure from cooling contraction.
Radiation is viable for meat safe-ening, plutonium would have more than enough strength to kill off anything living on or inside the meat. However if it was unshielded it could leave background radiation on the food.
A plutonium powered radiator, a lead box with a pull-up cover that let’s a beam of radiation onto food. Still not entirely radiation free but meh.
Also, meat preserving doesn’t seem to be a problem. Killing a dear/bear yields 10-50 chunks of meat.
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### Author:  [@Reaper](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Reaper)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/24 "2013-05-24T04:11:39Z")
Trades about rotten food gradually became a thread about canning:)
Well, then, I say…
I think there is not enough self-made containers for canning. From plastic bottles to craft something quite possible. Also can use empty tin cans.
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### Author:  [@Pthalocy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Pthalocy)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 4:27am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/25 "2013-05-24T04:27:36Z")
For food preserving things easily, I would (personally) go the boiled jar route before attempting to tin goods. Simply because it’s easier to do resource-wise. And there are glass jars now in addition to bottles, so that’s nice.
If you’re not completely perfect on the canning/tinning process though, especially for items that are low-acid, low-salt, you still run the risk of botulism. This is something I have to be wary of every time we do homemade pickles and such.
Of course, if we’re making cooking with rotten goods available, a sickness that involves very horrible dexterity loss (botulism can cause paralysis) rather than general stat penalties might be interesting for variance.
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### Author:  [@DeepEnd](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/DeepEnd)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 9:17am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/26 "2013-05-24T09:17:28Z")
> [@GunnerX](#):
>
> And then there is lutefisk.
Lutefisk for the lutefisk god!
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### Author:  [@Flare](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Flare)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 11:30am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/27 "2013-05-24T11:30:44Z")
> [@drake1storm](#):
>
> [quote=“TheKaltur, post:5, topic:1302”]I don’t think, that it should be like this, because if you cook it every single bacterium and every bad thing in there will be dead and you should be able to eat this.
No, that is entirely false. While, yes, many basic bacteria will die when cooked, the bacteria and toxins released by said bacteria during the rotting process tend to survive all the way up to the point when the meat is charcoal. Hunters tended to store their meat by smoking it, and if they did not smoke or cure it fast enough, they contributed to the major food poisoning problem that occurred in nomadic hunter societies. The same problem that would be prevalent in any post apocalyptic scenario.[/quote]
You’re right in that not all the chemicals released by the bacteria would denature when you cook it, but you’d be surprised at how much stuff the human digestive system can tolerate. My Grandpa used to tell me that I’m wasting food by throwing out weeks old, partially refrigerated rotten meat meat which he’d promptly cook and eat. Most mainstream cuisine is sheltered, especially urban North American cuisine. Of all the cultures I know, they are some of the most sheltered.
One way of removing the toxins would be to boil it several times changing the water after each time. It won’t get rid of everything, but it will lower the amount of toxins to the point that your body won’t have any issues.
That being said, eating rotten meat is a very dangerous affair. There are some things that you just must not do when cooking it. Maybe if you find a survivalist book it’ll have recipes on how to make rotten meat edible again.
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### Author:  [@vache](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/vache)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/28 "2013-05-24T13:51:54Z")
Maybe higher cooking skill = more food rot that can be cooked away?
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### Author:  [@Pthalocy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Pthalocy)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 6:17pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/29 "2013-05-24T18:17:24Z")
Makes sense someone who really knows their food would have an easier time salvaging bad bits.
Yeah human digestive systems are …well, we’re omnivores by design. We think of moldy food as bad, which is a good idea since generally food old enough to grow mold is likewise old enough to harbour bacteria of dangerous varieties, but look at cheese! Mold is edible. It’s good to remember that our cuisine’s limits are imposed by personal tastes as much as actual necessity. 😃
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### Author:  [@Sharp](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Sharp)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/30 "2013-05-24T18:54:20Z")
Hmm with all this talk of food preservation and temperature issues as well this seems to be turning into Unreal World. Maybe should port Cata to Unreal World or Unreal to Cata. die evil njerpez zombies!
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### Author:  [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/cooking-from-rotten-food/1302/31 "2013-05-24T20:33:50Z")
Rather than having a sliding scale for what is considered rotten, possibly have some special recipes that allow somewhat rotten food to be recovered, but to a less-than ideal state. The proposed repeatedly boiled meat for example would not be particularly appetizing.
However just adjusting the system to exclude rotten ingredients from recipes is being rather a pain at the moment, so not sure how much interest we’ll have in messing with it even more for the edge-case of recovering rotten meat at high skill levels.
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