Up until a few experimentals, the item descriptions contained “You could use it to craft X” information. I think it disappeared around the time the display of special attacks on weapons disappeared…
the display for weapon techniques dissappeared? On purpose?
I thought they just removed the block tech from the items I make early game
No, that was a bug and has been fixed: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/commit/7e9ce8e7282c90881a46642bd90af199a1b9e192
but the craft suggestions have not been restored yet…