I wrote this post years ago, but recently updated it to remove old/outdated podcasts and add some new ones. Hope you find them useful!
First, let me establish the difference between the culinary and botanical world.
The botanical world has no vegetables. There are only fruits that happen to have the same name as the term in a culinary sense. And they both just happen to be typically edible. Botanical fruits also are the seed bearing structure of a plant. Culinarily fruits are specific botanical fruits that people have somehow classified as a culinary fruit. I have yet to find an example where a culinary fruit isn’t a botanical fruit.^1 Botanical fruits such as tomatoes and gourds are the center of controversy as they are botanically a fruit, but many have decided them as a vegetable. More obvious examples of vegetables that are botanically a fruit are cucumbers and hot peppers. Some people say whether they’re sweet or not can classify them, but there are citrus fruits such as lemons that are sour and things like sweet potatoes which are sweet. I’d also like to note that things like avocados can have a sweet taste to some and a savory taste to others leading to inconsistency in classification.
Edit^1 : found a culinary fruit that isn’t a botanical fruit. Rhubarb
I’ve been cooking the same old recipes on rotation every couple weeks and want to learn how to make different foods. It can get a bit boring on the tastebuds. So to remedy that, I’ve been on the hunt for new recipes.
We've all heard the debate as to whether tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable. The answer is both. "Fruit" is a specific scientific category with an objective definition. Tomatoes inarguably fall into this category.
"Vegetable" on the other hand is basically any plant part we eat. It is a culinary category--not a biological category--which includes fruits (like tomato and cucumber), leaves (like lettuce and kale), roots (like carrots and potatoes), seeds (like peas and green beans), and just about every other plant part. There is NOT an objective scientific definition of vegetables.
Further reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable
If tomatoes are fruit, then so is every squash, every pepper, every grain, and a whole lot of other vegetables. Sure, it's a fun little tidbit to catch your friends at the age of five, but let's all grow up and be consistent here. Either call them all fruits, or call a tomato an actual vegetable.
This was even a United States Supreme Court case because someone was trying to get around Vegetable taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden
So basically, I don’t like eating most of what people consider culinary fruits (sweet fruits). I really only eat the occasional orange.
I have been playing on a server recently and a lot of people are using Culinary generators with toasts to operate their base, completly oblivious to all the things they could use instead.
So I decided to make a little list for myself and check what is the best thing to put inside a culinary generator. I selected the simplest dishes every time, and the easiest to automate.
Here are a few things for those who don't know Pam's harvestcraft very well:
- Salt can be made from nothing with just some water
- Toast is basically wheat and a lot of processing. Wheat -> Flour -> Bread -> Toast
- Flour is super easy to make. It can be made from either potatoes or wheat.
- Dough is a combination of water, flour and salt. It can be hard to automate because of the water.
28 RF/T
- Toast: wheat
32 RF/T
- Ice cream: snow + milk + salt
35 RF/T
- Chocolate ice cream: ice cream + chocolate
38 RF/T
- Cooked meat ingot: -
- Mocha ice cream: ice cream + chocolate + coffee
- Stuffed eggplant: eggplant + garlic
41 RF/T
- Cucumber salad: lettuce + any vegetable + cucumber
44 RF/T
- BLT: lettuce + tomato + tofu/pork + toast=wheat
- Split pea soup: peas + pork/tofu + pepper + stock
- Veggie stirfry: bellpepper + carrot + rice + onion + chili/beans/mushrooms
- Chicken celery casserole: Celery + chicken/tofu + Garlic + Carrots + Mushrooms
- Cherry cheesecake: cherry/pumpkin + flour + sugar + heavy cream/tofu + egg/tofu
- Bacon wrapped dates: Date + Tofu/Pork
50 RF/T
- **All the 50's are a pain in the ass to make
56 RF/T
- Chicken Gumbo: stock + onion + bellpepper + celery + okra + spice leaf + chicken/tofu
- McPam: Toast + Lettuce + Onion + Salad Dressing (UGH...) + Pickles/Gherkin
60.5 RF/T
- Epic bacon: Pork/Tofu + Lots of dyes
- Beef Wellington: Dough + Spinach + Mushrooms + Beef/Tofu
Now. Here's my little rant
64 RF/T
- Cake:
Yes. Cake.
What do you think ? After all the stuff I showed, cake being the most profitable thing to put in a culinary generator ?
I mean goddamn ! That must be some good cake !
Nerf the cake please, because the epic bacon and the beef wellington should give you at least twice the energy of a cake.
This would be in our school's outdoor dining area with white table-cloths and some flowers. I obviously can't do wine. What cheeses would go well with fresh juices? Any tips to make the event more alluring? I'm already planning to require dressy attire and I might have some chamber music.
I’m growing a food forest here on Long Island and I finally compiled a list of everything that I’m growing/can be grown for food into a downloadable and sortable spreadsheet. You can sort by hardiness zone, shade requirements, use, etc. You might be surprised what’s on the list! Just shy of 200 plants.
https://dearjuneberry.com/plants-for-a-temperate-food-forest/
