Ingredients For Hearthfire Cook/Chef

[DirebearCoat]

So, I was thinking how cool it would be, if the steward could hire a cook for your manor.  Your character could hunt, gather vegetables, spices, and other ingredients (from alchemy) and would put those in a "Pantry."  The hired cook would then make meals from the ingredients found in the pantry and set the main dining table with the breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The "Pantry" would be a cupboard, that acts like a chest where you store all of the ingredients.  The cook accesses the contents in the pantry to make dinners and snacks.  Maybe the "Pantry" could be a root cellar, outside, that gets added as an option to add when you build your hearthfire manor, and completing the root cellar would add the option for the steward to hire a cook.  Or the pantry can be an actual cupboard in the kitchen that when you add the cupboard, it adds the option for the steward to hire a cook.

Everyone who lived at the house would go to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner when the table was set (housecarl, steward, farmhands, etc)

The cook would put snacks of fruits and cheeses or baked treats, with a new "cheese and fruits tray," or "assorted cookies, muffins, and candies, tray," which the cook would set on the table in the master bed chamber.  If you have adopted children, they'd occasionally get a snack from the snack tray to snack on.

The cook would set a snack tray up on the central dresser (upstairs, where the housecarl normally sleeps), where the housecarl, steward, and other manor staff would go to get their snacks.

If the "pantry" is empty, or lacks ingredients, then the cook would start complaining to your character that the "cupboard is bare," or "There's no food in this house!" or a number of other things the cook could say to complain.

If the pantry is well stocked, then the cook would say stuff like, "This is a prosperous house, for every meal is a feast!" or some other kind of compliment.

If the cook makes the same meals for breakfast lunch and dinner, and you talk to the cook about it, then the cook might suggest, "Perhaps a little more variety in your cupboard is what you need," or some other kind of comment that "artfully" expresses disapproval for the lack of ingredients.

Among some of the other things that the cook will randomly tell the lord of the manor, is "I've studied in the best culinary schools and can make the most sophisticated dishes from the Gourmet's book, Uncommon Taste," (or something like that) among other random comments.

 

[Inthesaaand]

Not a bad idea this. Within the game as it stands there is this notion that 'life goes on', so to speak while you're away being you. The household maintains itself, your people are fed, clothed, housed and cared for under your responsibility without you being responsible for it, the game does it all on your behalf. Implement something like this and those responsiblities become a part of your life, it is your house after all. Furthermore you could introduce consequence, if the cupboard is bare the wife, kids and staff go without. The house falls into disrepair, people get ill, maybe even starve. I suspect a tie in of some sort with survival might allow for that. Maybe the wife starts to look elsewhere and plots your demise, plenty of assassins and bandits in Skyrim. Perhaps they themselves turn to crime, imagine picking up a bounty for a new group of bandits that turns out to be your own kin. Yes, a lot of running room here I think. Not a bad idea at all.

[BlazeStryker]

Moreover, if you wind up with a bunch of meat from hunting and crops from Goldenhills, well, the idea of your settlements, er, homes sharing goods and resources so everyone's happy and there's an excuse to get news from one home when you stop at another. (Yes, it's yet another necessary idea ripped off from Fallout 4 modding. Sue me!)