I can't say for sure what forgot means, but I think he's saying that hermit items (particularly the jabanero pepper) should be considered acquirable, so you could "acquire painful penne" and mafia would use gum to get a worthless item, trade the worthless item for a pepper, and cook the penne. The hermit item should be assigned a meat cost pessimistically (i.e., assume that you will get all remaining gummable items before getting the worthless item), so that the operation will never fail midway through. I would agree with this request - hermit items effectively just cost meat now, and they should be treated as such when possible. Practically, it would make eating penne slightly more convenient.
I don't know anything about cooking being broken.