No problem. Thank you for trying 
Actually your suggestion does seem to have worked. I just copied the recipe_food.json from the latest experimental over to my game and despite an error on startup (something about a recipe) it’s now working Yah! Fush and Chups here I come!
Happy to help. Glad it worked out for you. 
Thinking about why this problem has stayed over multiple updates over the months could a dev tell me; when you update in the experimental does it mark what files are to to be altered or does it overwrite everything? I just wondered if perhaps my original installation had the fried fish recipe missing and somehow it never fixed itself. But then, why would it be showing in the json file? 
When you update to a new experimental version, you should download an archive of the latest experimental build. extract it, and copy over your config/, mods/ and save/ folders. None of the other data should be preserved between different experimental versions.
Since you asked for a dev to answer your question, I assume you’re using the (third-party) launcher, in which case I do not know what they do when they update.
Addendum:
You should probably manually download new copies of the mods in your mods/ directory instead of copying it over, because the mods in there will probably be out of date.
Apologies for bumping an old thread, but I’m working on a fork of aftershock that should suit your needs. It’s a mix of some bits from current version, some bits from the previous version, some bits from other mods, and some bits I’ve added or changed myself. As it is currently, it’s function within the main game, but still has a lot of stuff I’ve intended to remove. You can let me know if you want it, and I’ll post it in its current state for you, otherwise it’ll eventually go up in the relevant thread (Abrahms Fork It or something along those lines).