🍋 : Jade admittedly didn't have a strong commitment to three meals a day in daily life back home; the more absorbed he gets in a certain amount of work, the more he tends to forget his own appetite, and the more likely he is to skip multiple meals in a day or just sort of snack sparingly between tasks. But when traveling with the rest of the party over the course of the game he probably ended up tracking meals a lot more closely! Just by virtue of certain other whiny youths being prone to complaining the moment they go too long without a food break of some kind smh. And now that he's on the ship, he's currently experiencing rather a lot more downtime than he's used to (you know, between The Horrors), so sitting down for some form of meal three times a day has actually become yet another way to pass that time with some very vague form of productivity, alongside it adding just a little more structure to an otherwise pretty aimless day (again, when there aren't The Horrors).

While Jade's not opposed to eating out sometimes, he'd usually cook for himself while living on his own, even despite the fact that he almost definitely had at least a couple servants at home in Grand Chokmah who'd be obliged to do it for him. He's Pretty Decent at cooking, too! As he mostly views it as just another particularly edible form of chemistry that can be interesting to mess around with, at the end of the day. He's part of the "why doesn't this boat at least have a kitchen to fiddle with ugh" coalition tbqh 😤 ...Though...when cooking for others he has a bad habit of Experimenting.....nothing lethal or overtly unpleasant, ofc, but you know!! How long would it take for someone notice their least favorite food being in a dish if it were seasoned or plated this certain way? How would this very mild poison react to this broth, and the person drinking it? If he substituted this for that, would a picky eater be able to tell?? Always be at least a little wary if Jade is cooking for you or handing you a weird new drink folks, even friends are not entirely safe--

Apparently his least favorite foods are anything containing pork or rappig meat, while his more favored foods are salmon, tofu, and wine (which is totally also a food ofc). Alongside these established canon preferences, I figure that in general Jade's probably quite inclined towards seafoods on the whole alongside salmon, especially sushi and the like! I imagine one of Keterburg's few claims to capital back in the day was a moderately robust fishing economy, positioned close to the sea as it was, so many of his childhood meals probably reflected as much. He also tends to incline towards healthier plates than not with a decent amount of greens, and smaller servings; not so big on sugary things at all, generally, though he does have just a bit of a soft spot for peppermint-flavored things and hot chocolate. There may or may not be very early memories of gathering in the schoolhouse with Nephry and Peony and Saphir after a long cold day roaming outdoors, and warming by the hearth while Professor Nebilim would prepare mugs for everyone...