Food production and return on time investment turns the corner at swamp level food (e.g. sausage, turnip stew), and improves from that at plains level (which is end game now but really mid game in the grand scheme of 9 expected biomes). Even BF level carrot soup and queens jam are decent with a roast meat (though low duration compared to higher tier). Certainly good enough for putzing around BF and meadows.

I would expect things to get tweaked and rebalanced with H&H, but at this point investing in the better foods available now is the best we can do.