The Manual: Obtaining Food
Dwarves like to eat, and there are many ways to serve them their favorite dishes. These include
gathering plants, fishing, hunting, butchering livestock and farming.
Gathering Plants
Gathering plants is a fairly inefficient way to get food, but you'll have to do it sometimes, if
only to get seeds that you can use for farming later. In order to gather plants you need:
- A healthy, unoccupied dwarf with the Plant Gathering profession
- A bush in a designated plant gathering area that such a dwarf can access
For technical help with these matters, follow these links:
Setting Professions
Designations
Fishing
Fishing is a fairly easy way to get some initial food, but you'll find yourself running out of fish in larger fortresses.
In order to fish you need:
- A healthy, unoccupied dwarf with the Fishing profession
- A nearby water source or a fishing activity zone
Fish need to be cleaned after you catch them. You'll need to construct a fishery to do this.
For technical help with these matters, follow this link:
Setting Professions
Activity Zones
Hunting
Hunting is another way to get some initial food, but it will put the life of your hunter at risk.
In order to hunt you need:
- A healthy, unoccupied dwarf with the Hunting profession, preferably armed with a ranged weapon
For technical help with these matters, follow these links:
Setting Professions
Setting Soldier Preferences
Butchering Livestock
You can slaughter animals that aren't pets, and you can butcher any animal corpse that doesn't belong to a pet.
In order to butcher a corpse you need:
- A healthy, unoccupied dwarf with the Butchery profession
- A Butcher's Shop
- An accessible unrotten animal corpse that wasn't once a pet
To slaughter animals, designate them for slaughter from the Animals screen.
For technical help with these matters, follow these links:
Setting Professions
Creating Buildings
The Animals Screen
Farming
Farming is the most reliable way to obtain food, but it is also the most complicated to prepare.
To get started, you must place a farm plot. You can place a farm plot on soil or mud, inside or outside.
Dwarves with the Farming (Fields) profession will plant seeds according to your selections in the farm plot menu, and all dwarves help with the harvest. A plant will generally grow either inside or outside, so be careful with the seeds you select.
Should you find a water source, you can divert the water using channels and floodgates to control
which squares become muddy (all water currently place mud).
Some plants that you farm aren't immediately edible, but can be processed at a mill or farmer's workshop to make
flour, sugar, syrup, spices or thread for cloth-making.
You can greatly increase your farm output by using potash as a fertilizer.
Potash is obtained from evaporating lye water, and lye water is obtained from soaking wood ash. These jobs
are carried out at the Ashery. The Making Crafts section of the First Outpost tutorial will discuss how to assign jobs.
For technical help with these matters, follow these links:
Creating Buildings
The Farm Plot Menu
Machines
Preparing Food
Each dwarf has preferred foods, but they only eat one piece of food when they are hungry. In order to maximize the chance that a dwarf can find
a piece of food that they really enjoy, it is important to use a kitchen to prepare food. This mixes the food types together. It also allows a dwarven
cook the opportunity to apply their craft to the ingredients and produce higher quality foods. The Making Crafts section of the First Outpost tutorial covers job assignment.
For technical help with these matters, follow this link:
The Kitchen Screen