Objects: Default food

[disemporium]

 

This project is a perfect example of how I can start of thinking "I wonder if..." and end up devoting several hours, or 7 weeks to making it work.  Whenever I saw one of my sims cooking, it never failed to break the illusion I've been trying to create in my game.  For a couple of years, I've been using Sunni's texture defaults, but I still found it distracting seeing milk cartons, egg boxes and sliced bread, so I decided to see if I could replace the meshes of those items.  I ended up doing that and more.  For every craftable food in the game and the eps, I've changed the meshes, textures or name, or all three, to make the meals more appropriate to nineteenth century Britain and my neighbourhood.  Then I made some items to use as clutter to decorate the kitchens of my houses.  I hope that some of you get as much use out of these as I'm going to get.

A couple of things about these files before I go through the changes:

• These are default replacements, which mean that you can have only one in your game.  If you are using any other food defaults, such as Sunni's texture defaults, please remove them, because otherwise there will be conflicts.
• The name changes will only show if your installation language is English or English (UK).  The reason being, I wasn't sure what they would be in some of the other languages and didn't want to offend anyone with my bungled translations. 
• Where there is text on the textures (such as the flour tin), I've made both English and Simlish versions of the textures so you can choose which fits your game best.
• All files are compressorised.

Base Game meals.

Breakfast.



We'll start with the Instant Meal since it is available all day.  I've replaced the cans with cups of Beef Tea.  Beef tea was a nutritious drink which was often prepared for invalids, and fed to them using an invalid cup.  Well, making an invalid cup and trying to get the placement right for drinking was beyond me, but I think that the idea of beef tea works well as a replacement for the instant meal.

There is a known problem with this one: 



When a sim puts the cup down, it will float due to the difference in the size of this mesh and the original can. 



Cereal has been replaced with porridge.   Breakfast cereals were being produced in the US by the end of the century, but they didn't start to become popular in Britain until the 1920s.  Porridge, or gruel however, was eaten, not only as a breakfast food stuff, but also for other meals amongst the poorer classes.  It was also a popular food to give to invalids and infants, again because it was thought to be very nutritious.




The omelette is now a ham omelette, a delicious breakfast dish according to Mrs Beeton.  Basically, I couldn't find any mention of peppers in Mrs Beeton or Eliza Acton, and so went with a ham omelette for more accuracy.






Pancakes aren't a traditional breakfast meal here in Britain, in fact we tend to eat them mainly on one day, Shrove Tuesday.  Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, and pancakes were made to use up the rich ingredients that people would give up whilst fasting for Lent, such as eggs, milk, and sugar. British pancakes are made from flour, with a pinch of salt, eggs and milk and are traditionally served with lemon juice and sugar.  They are slightly thicker than crepes, and no where near as thick as American pancakes.





I took inspiration from Sunni and made the toaster pastries into toast.  Simples.


Lunch.



The lunch meat sandwiches are now corned beef sandwiches, and are made with unsliced bread.  At last. 



I refrained from renaming this as toasted cheese sandwiches, because grilled cheese is such a large part of the game, it would be a huge undertaking.




Chilli con carne is now minced beef, based on a recipe I found in my copy of Mrs Beeton.  If I ever work out how to change the bowl the meal is served in, into a plate, I will be revisiting this one.




I changed the name of the chef's salad to just salad and improved the mesh somewhat.  Interestng fact, Mrs Beeton claims that cucumber is virtually indigestible and recommends that those with weak constitutions eat only a very little of it.




The hamburgers are now Cornish pasties.  (Huge thanks to Fuzzy again for this idea).  They look a bit odd when being cooked, but eh.  Cornish pasties fit my game far better than hamburgers.

The last lunch file, is a name replacement only for the hot dogs.  They are now sausages inna bun.  I did try retexturing them, but no matter what I did, they looked awful.  I might revisit it in the future.


Dinner.




Mac and cheese is now macaroni.  Macaroni was actually a popular dish to serve with the cheese course of the meal, and Mrs Beeton has several different recipes for it.  Although, it should be noted that the Victorians called any type of pasta macaroni, including spaghetti.




The TV dinner is now broiled rabbit.  It's not brilliant, I know, but it is a lot better than the original.  The plate is textured to match the default plates I'm currently using.




The spaghetti is now mutton stew.  With dumplings.  Bolognase sauce was being made in Italy by the end of the Victorian era, but spag bol didn't become a popular meal here in Britain until the latter half of the twentieth century, so I felt, even with a half Italian sim in the family now, I had to change it.



I made a couple of changes to the ingredients and changed the texture of the peas, but that's it for this meal.



Salmon has been renamed to broiled salmon, and I made a few changes to the ingredients too.




I've renamed the turkey to roast turkey, and made the green vegetable consistent, since the original maxis textures had peas or chopped herbs change to cabbage, change to green beans.  Now it's cabbage, and I also got rid of the strange textures under the turkey when it was cooked.




I replaced the jug and bowls on the lobster, but that was all, since it actually isn't too bad.





For the ribs, I changed the models on the chopping board and the textures of the eat mesh to make it look more era appropriate.


Desserts.




I changed the layer cake to a Victoria sandwich.  Technically, Victoria sandwiches during the Victorian era, where cut into rectangles just like finger sandwiches, hence the name, but I just felt I had to make the cake one.  I also replaced the cooking mesh so that it made more sense, because perfectly round cakes will not come about by just pouring the batter into a rectangular tray and baking.





Whilst the Victorians loved their ices, baked Alaska just felt wrong to me, so I made it into plum pudding.  By the Victorian era, plum pudding (or plum duff) actually referred to any pudding that contained dried fruit, and not necessarily one which contained plums.  This plum pudding is based on Mrs Beeton's Christmas pudding recipe. 


The last dessert default is a name replacement only for the gelatin. I've renamed it strawberry jelly, since the Victorians loved their jellies and the red suggest strawberries.

Expansion Pack meals.

Night Life.



I have made a replacement for the chopping board for the crepes too, but in my game it doesn't show.  Instead, the tray mesh is used.  Now, this could be a bug in all game versions, or just be particular to the combination of eps I have.  Anyway, the mesh is included in the default, and again there is an English and a Simlish version for you to download, depending on what you prefer in your game.


Holiday Pack.



Only a couple of changes to the chopping board, and I've renamed it to roast rib of lamb, because I didn't like holiday roast.  It makes it more usable in my opinion and looks better in my menu.




The Santa cookies are now shortbread.  It not only fits better with the era, but I think it makes the food more usable since it doesn't suggest it's only tied to one time of year.


Open For Business.




The cheesecake is now a custard tart.  It can still cause twins, but fits the era better.





I did think about making the berry pie into a cherry pie because the textures were almost there, but in the end I decided that it felt wrong to have the opportunity to put an apple pie into my game and not do it.  Recipes for apple pies have been found in Britain dating as far back as the 14th century and it is still the most quintessentially British of all fruit pies.  Traditionally the crust is decorated with pastry apple leaves, but the mapping on this mesh made that impossible to achieve, hence why there is also no vent for the steam to escape.  Whatever, my sims can now eat apple pie.  Just a shame I couldn't make custard to go with it.


Seasons.



Blackened catfish is now broiled catfish.  I would have liked to change the name of the fish, since catfish aren't all that plentiful in Britain, but I think it's ok as it is.



Bass with squash is now broiled perch, because there was no squash in the original dish, and large mouth bass are not found in the British isles, whereas perch, which looks very similar, is.  This also changes the name of the fish when caught or mounted on the wall.




I just changed the bowl on these meshes, since they weren't too bad.


Free Time.




I made a few changes to get rid of the peppers.  The tray of ingredients pulls its textures from the chilli con carne ingredients, so if you don't have my default for that installed, things will look a little odd.


Other defaults.

As well as defaulting the foods, I've made a few other defaults to compliment them.




I've made a texture replacement for the meat/fish package that sims will pull out of the fridge for some of the meals.



I've also replaced the mixing bowl to look a bit better than the Maxis one.

The last default is for the tray, and you can see it throughout this post.  You'll see a little clipping in a few of the pictures, but that's because I'm an idiot and forgot that I hadn't finished it before taking these pictures.  I've now resized the mesh and the clipping is much less.


Kitchen Items.

To finish off this set, I've made a few items to decorate your kitchen with, and tie it all together.



The oat flakes box and flour tin come with Simlish recolours, whilst the jug comes with a gravy recolour for the liquid inside, and the jar has both a pea and a mange tout recolour.  They are all found under the decorative > misc tab and there is also a collection file included in the archive.




I've also made versions of of the Sims Design Avenue castle fridge, with empty shelves, so you can do this:



It doesn't have slots, but that's what OMSPs, move_objects on and boolprop snapobjectstogrid false are for, right?  You can stock your pantry however you want.



It also means that if you're like me and you like to have a fridge in the nursery to stop sims walking right across the house to feed babies and toddlers, you can fill the shelves with items that fit the nursery and make it look like a normal cupboard. 

 

The last thing to say about this fridge is that it's slaved to the original SDA fridge (which I've included in the archive), so all of the recolours you have of that will also work for this.

Downloads.

Well done for making it through that huge post, but now you want the downloads right?  Ok then.  Remember to choose either English or Simlish ingredients and not both.
 

Base Game food defaults English ingredients.
Base Game food defaults Simlish ingredients.
Night Life crepes English ingredients.
Night Life crepes Simlish ingredients.
Holiday pack English ingredients.
Holiday pack Simlish ingredients.
Open for Business English ingredients.
Open for Business Simlish ingredients.
Seasons food defaults.
Free Time food default.
Default utensils.
Kitchen items.
SDA empty fridge  for eps up to, but not including, Seasons.
SDA empty fridge for Seasons, but no Free Time installed.
SDA empty fridge for games with Free Time installed.


Credits.

Sunni for some textures including the wood texture I used for the chopping boards and some meshes including the cheese and eggs.
Cassandre for some meshes and textures, including the glass jars and the basket for the eggs, as well as the carrots.
Nemestnaya for the base mesh for the flour tin.
Moune for the canister.
4ESF for the potato mesh.


Some questions which may have occurred to you.

Can I use these as the basis for my own defaults? 

Of course you can. Credit would be nice if you use my stuff, but do what you want to make it fit your game.

Can I change the names in the pie menus since you don't speak my language and so haven't?

Yep.  It's very simple to do.  Open the package using Simpe and click on the catalogue description in the top left hand box.  In the plugin view, pick your language from the drop down menu (in my simpe, the default language it displays is English).  Change every instance of the old name to the new name and click the commit button.  Now click on the text list in the top left hand box and do the same.  Save the file.

Will you be making a default dinnerware replacement using the pattern you have used for the crockery in this set?

Unless I decide to completely remake the Maxis serving bowl, no.  The serving bowl is slaved to the dinner plate, but the mapping is completely insane and so the pattern I made for this looks awful on it.

Will you be replacing the quick meals?

Probably not.  I use Almighty Hat's defaults for the cookies and crisps and am pretty happy with them.  I may look at changing the OJ in the future, but not right now.

Are you completely mad for doing this?

Yes, yes I am.

Ok, I think that that is everything.  If you notice anything amiss, let me know.  I've tested all of these, but there are numerous things I could have missed, including exploding morphs.