I find myself occasionally eating bread and then eating jam. I like to pretend I am spreading the jam on the bread, but let’s be honest here; chasing bread with jam just doesn’t taste as good as proper jammy bread. So we could probably adjust things a little;
Part 1: Instead of eating one food item at a time, when you use E to get to the eating menu, it would allow you to select multiple food items. The combined stats of all the items chosen will be shown, allowing you to ‘build a meal’ out of different items in your inventory.
Part 2: Food items are flagged. Meat, Grain, Fruit, Veggie, Sweet, and Soup (perhaps others if necessary). Other items, such as Mayonaise, Ketchup, Mustard, and the various seasonings and spices, along with being recipe ingredients (and themselves granting some amount of nutrition), are classified as Condiments. The idea here would be to match each condiment type to one or more food types. Salt for example could be good for Meats, Veggies, and Soups. Ketchup would be good for Meat and Veggies. Jam would be good for Grain and Sweets. Maple Syrup would be good for Grain, Fruit, and Sweets. Sugar would be good for Fruit and Sweets. Mayonaise would be for Grain and Veggie. Salad Dressing with Veggies. Etc etc.
Basically, when you combine a food item with a condiment that goes well with, you get a boost to enjoyment. For example:
x1 Cooked Meat : 50 Nutrition, 8 Fun
x1 Cooked Wild Veggies : 40 Nutrition, 0 Fun
x2 Salt : Condiment
Total: 50+40 Nutrition, 8(+4 from x1 Salt)+ 0(+4 from x1 Salt)=16 Fun —> Note that each ‘use’ of a condiment subtracts one from the pile.
It wouldn’t have to stop at condiments. Foods themselves could go well together. Like grains(bread, rolls, biscuits) and soups could garner an additional morale bonus. Fruit and Sweets is another. Meat and Veggies. Drinks could be included as well. Meat and beer. Sweets and wine.
This wouldn’t have to be a difficult process. It might on the surface look like a lot of management, but my thinking is that when you go into the Eat menu and select a food item, the game could highlight any items that would go well with it, whether that is a condiment or another food item. When a condiment is selected it would automatically use the number of portions that can be applied. So in the above example, when you start putting together your meal, you would select Cooked Meat. The game would then highlight Salt and Cooked Wild Vegetables. You select Salt and Cooked Wild Vegetables as the game suggests. Simply selecting the item would either take exactly 1 food item or exactly the number of condiment portions required for all food items in the meal. If a number is pressed first you can choose how many food items or condiment portions to use. So you could do 2x bread + 1 Strawberry Jam, make yourself a jam sandwich that would give you all the nutrition and enjoyment of all three items, plus a Fun bonus because jam goes with the bread.
Part 3: Utensils. The oft overlooked item. This is really simple; every food type has 0 to 2 utensils that make it easier and more enjoyable to eat. Meat wants a fork and knife. Veggies want a fork. Soup wants a spoon. Food can be eaten without these things, but it’s more enjoyable when you have eating utensils. So what’s the least intrusive way to manage this? If there are utensils in the area around the player or in their inventory, grant them a small morale bonus (+1, +2) to their meal. This could also apply to plates, bowls, and drinking glasses. Even sitting in a chair with a table in your proximity could give bonuses as well. The change should be very minor, but enough to make a difference.
The basic idea here is that if you combine all possible things; seasoned meat with a fork and knife to cut, buttered potatoes, bread and jam, a plate to hold it on, a glass of beer, a table to eat off and a chair to sit in instead of standing, then overall you will come away from that meal much happier than if you had simply stood in a gloomy kitchen eating unseasoned meat with your bare hands.
The way I envision this is having it be very unintrusive and as intuitive as possible. The game will do the heavy lifting, helping you decide what to combine and how many portions to use. In order to get other bonuses one would simply need to gather the needed objects in one place and consistently eat at the same location. Or bring their utensils/etcetera with them.
Although the backend work to flag everything in the game would be tough, in the end I think it would provide a system similar to recipes and capable of giving Fun bonuses (Only Cooking can give you nutrition bonuses), without actually needing every single thing (like a jam sandwich) needing to actually be a recipe in the game. It would be easier to work in new condiments/foods that can be combined with other foods/condiments without needing to clutter the crafting menu with more recipes.
Note: The idea of nearby items/furniture affecting the Fun of a task could be applied to other things as well. Reading in a comfortable chair, for example.
Note 2: This is a series of suggestions that I think would work in pieces or as a whole. The main suggestion, really, is flagging food items more specifically, and creating a ‘meal’ by combining food items. The rest is just more detail.
