Well a resistance spell is short lived, but it can hardly be seen as pointless as it increases saving throws +1, the reason I suggested cure minor wounds, fortitude and resistance is that to me they seemed to be more physical attributes rather than mental, and I thought eating a nutritiouse hearty meal which increases fortitude makes much more sense than it bolstering will. They would have to be short lived, because increased duraions would be too powerfull and wiuldnt make sense, however I did not suggest anything wild like increased spot bonuses or search, so I think "laser vision" is a bit of an unfair comment.
The laser vision was just a larf, sorry. >_<
Mainly the point I was failing to make is that if a character was shunning herbalism, it's likely because they're afraid of magic. Therefore, any food effect besides 'being tasty' and 'being nutritious' is likely to be just as scary to them. If they're useful enough to an adventurer, they're magic. If they're not useful to an adventurer... Why aren't we just RPing it?
With the resistance example, you then have the fairly surreal occurance of a Monk stuffing down a cornish pasty whilst charging into a fight to increase his chance of resisting spells thrown at you.
I just don't see where it might work and still make sense and fit in, without massively complicating the food/hunger system. Maybe you could have different grades of food quality to increase rest-based recovery, but I don't think that's the sort of thing it makes sense to base an entire craft around. Maybe just make Food Rations poor food, stuff like Chicken decent food, and the exotic import non-vallaki stuff expensive food. Even that seems overdoing it a bit.
I'm mainly thinking dev time.
If it's a coin-flip between Cooking and, say, Enchantment or Trapmaking, I think it's obvious which has the more significant niche.