Covenants gives two guidelines to "treat and process" products, one for Animal and one for Herbam. The Animal one is base 3 and the Herbam one is base 5. Later in the book the Herbam guideline is used for a device that makes food This seems a weird place to have a difference, and I wonder if there has ever been an explanation for it. I don't see a reason why they both could not be 3, but I'm curious if there is an explanation.
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If I had to give a guess-
Most uses of animal material is "basic" for a lack of a better word- making leather bags, cooking or at the very peak using bone tools.
Meanwhile wood is much more complex and grand potentially- creating entire complex structures like mills for example.
So it comes down to difference of assumption: probably.
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This is where I'd expect complexity modifiers and/ or Finesse rolls to take place. Make a club? simple. Make a wooden castle? Try harder
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Iirc for crafting, complexity magnitudes typically get involved for only Creo.
But yeah, a finesse roll would absolutely be needed for stuff like a mill.
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It is well established that different Forms are often easier or harder to do certain things with. This goes back before AM5 where we have the guidelines, to earlier editions. Pick almost any action, not just "cooking". For example, try "Talking with" and check all the different Forms for the Base needed. It will range up and down.
That it is easier to 'Rego Craft' food from animals than plants is a Feature, not a Bug.
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I am wondering how complex most cooking is in ME.
Is it typically more than cook porridge, boil some edible greens, or fry fish or meat? (where and when does haggis come into the picture?)
Surely there is not much Finesse in cooking pirate stew?
Dabnabbit! I forgot about baking Bread or curing Ham. Cheese!
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As complex as it is today, possibly more complex: since food was more valuable relative to labour, people spent more effort squeezing every possible bit of nutrition and taste from edible stuff!
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The feasts of the wealthy could get really elaborate, with, say, mutton and chicken ground up, mixed with herbs and spices, and then moulded to look like a boar.
But for most people, yeah: Mostly gruel, dark bread, and simply cooked veggies. Generally over a fire using a pot.
Very little red meat, more fish, and cheese.
The grains were often barley and rye rather than wheat or rice.
As a dish haggis comes later, though in the 13th century the wild haggis of the Highlands had already split into the clockwise and counter-clockwise breeds.
Do not attempt to make cheese with crafting magic. Whole covenants have been lost.
There’s also food items that require complex processing.
Olives spring to mind, as they take months of repeated brining to be made palatable, and then they are often brined with herbs and/or spices to add flavor.
It is one thing that always impresses me. The commitment and devotion committed to making something edible.
Guy bites an onion. It tastes horrible, but what if we cooked it? Why would it not still taste horrible? Let's just try it.
Olives. Lets soak this rock like thing and see if we can eat it later. One week later. It is still terrible. Let's keep going.
Mushrooms? Jimmy died eating the red spotted ones. Alfonso jumped off the cliff because he was certain he was a bird when he ate the brown one. I'm going to try this grey one anyway.
Some elements of olden times food required a certain level of lunacy.
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Some of that came from observing animals eating these things.
And processing olives is not complicated; just time consuming. There is a level 15 Creo Herbam guideline which states: "Bring a plant to maturity in a single day or night." This takes an acorn from seed to decades-old tree overnight; so doing a season or two of 'let it soak in this brine' in a day should be no big deal.
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Or a (not so infrequent) year of famine.
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