Originally posted by _I_:

what the food is cooked on should not make any difference on the foods effects when consumed

There are 2 equally valid (in my opinion) replies to this, based on:

1. The realism argument - what the food is cooked on -DOES- make a difference in both quality and taste in real life.

Now neither of us knows what game mechanism Valheim considers as the primary 'quality' trigger that makes some cooked items better than others, but just about every cooked quality can and does differ based on type of surface and/or what it is cooked on.

Meat cooked on a cast iron surface has a very different grilled taste, as well as different levels of heating to the center when put on a metal spit vs just laid open over a fire (iron cooking hooks vs wood lay on top stations in valheim)

So while neither of us can say what 'taste' or intangible 'magic' quality Valheim uses because of course it is a game, you are quoting a real life justification that isn't really true. What the food is cooked on does make quite the difference in real life food so why shouldn't that same argument carry over to magic food?

2. The in-game Valheim world logic that we as players can see -

In just about every other category of device in Valheim, the player is given added / better functionality as the 'tech level' of the item goes up or you add more 'levels' to it.

So from a pure game logic pov, then yes, what the food is cooked on should matter because apparently that same logic holds true for practically everything else. Upgrade your base item, make better / more functional items with it.

So even if the realistic argument doesn't make sense, the current in-game logic all points to the assumption that an iron cooking station ought to have at least some token functional improvement over wood. And I didn't say originally just quality - it could be speed of cooking, anything.