Since making all 16 stews in an old game long since restarted I don't bother much with stews. I'll just make the one that enables a villager to find one of the gong pieces, and perhaps make the one SupernaturalJem mentions to restore the villagers' health if I accidentally caused starvation. Even if a particular villager has a low health bar I won't normally make the stew; time tends to heal them, plus a move to a more 'healthy' job sometimes.
The method of making stews is rather tedious, I find, and it is too easy to accidentally get the wrong combination of herbs. If it were possible to make stews without the need to micromanage every step I'm sure I'd make more, but at the moment all my five games show only one or two stews made in the stats.
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To err is human; to arr is pirate.