Villagers don't seem to eat stews on their own. If you don't take them over and drop them on it, they'll ignore it.
I am almost 100% positive my villagers eat whatever stew I make for them. I made the stew that causes them to
gain building skills, and in 5 minutes half the village was
"this villager has improved at building" even though they were not involved in any
building projects and were in fact just resting & sitting on the ground. I only dropped one villager on the stew.
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