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Hey all,
I have a character that is big into the culinary arts. Being an adventurer, means traveling with a considerable store of food stuffs.
Now, there are spells such as preserve that will keep things fresh for a time. But what are some other methods for keeping perishables from spoiling during travels?
Siccatite Refrigerator:
One idea I have is getting a sliver of cold siccatite and dunking it in water until it freezes a shell of ice around it to act as a constant cold pack. But a 2' ball of ice seems hard to manage. The raw siccatite does 1 point of cold damage/ turn... which I'd think would destroy food. Perhaps you could chip the ice ball down to a more manageable size? But would the reduced insulation cause it to freeze everything solid? Other insulation may be possible.
I figure if you put this in a bag of holding with your food, it'd stay pretty chilly.
Gentle repose?
It keeps flesh from rotting... but it seems kind of macabre. Is there anything prohibitive about this spell when used on food? Would each individual piece need its own casting?
It's silly stuff, but I'd love to hear Pathfinder methods of accomplishing things we take for granted in the modern era.
Put it in a Bag Of Holding.
Well previously, cooking food increased meat shelf life a little. Salt pack, jerking, smoking meats also increased storage life a lot more.
Dry stuffs (Flours, seeds, potatoes and tubers) need cool not cold dry dark places away from vermin and they can last for months.
Honey cures, or just storing in honey removes bacteria and can allow for limited preservation (plus honey never goes bad).
Sugaring or jamming preserves that are then placed in jars helps as well. Pretty much the same as salting.
Pickling and placing in jars also allow for long term storage.
Nuts last a very long time as well just as a food, as well as dried spices and seasonings.
Wax sealing also keep out air, better for hard foods like lard or cheese though.
A cold cellar buried underground is also great, it doesn't take much to get the earth to cool food for you.
A bag of holding or handy haversack or pathfinders pouch only have as much air as they hold, they are otherwise completely air sealed. If you can remove what little air is left inside it becomes a solid airless storage container. Maybe a lit candle inside to suck up O2 and replace it with CO2.
Dimensional spaces if you have access to that could send food to an airless void.
or you could just let it rot and then UMD wand of Druid Spell Purify Food and Drink. That works by Cu ft.
Most of this assumes storage of foods for months, not days or weeks.
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Purify Food & Drink seems the easiest method for a PC.
For NPC's, some with access to this orison put in charge of a granary doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
Poor communities using root cellars could freeze buckets of water in the winter, and stack them in a root cellar for even colder storage.
There's an actual item explicitly for this purpose. Magical refrigerator? Magical refrigerator.
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Haha, leave it to me to miss something so obvious!
I'm playing an Oracle, and Purify food and Drink is on my list! I guess I just assumed this was to prevent poison or diseased food from being used maliciously against the party.
But yea, it's a super effective way of handling food long term! Used every day, it keeps food from decaying better than a modern refrigerator!
If used frequently you wouldn't even have a bad smell to deal with.
I have the preserve spell for long term storage (1 week/ casting). But I was having to cast that 1st lvl spell several times/ day to keep the quantity I was carrying fresh.
I'll still use Preserve on my freshest ingredients like crisp fruits and vegetables. But for meats and other foods that are better when aged a bit, purify food will work great!
Thanks again, folks!