I got into a house on Chernarus, found a potatoe, peeled it with a hatchet, it had 26% remaining.

I put a rag in the stove, and the potatoe in the cooking slot. I went out to get short sticks. I came back with long sticks, split them and added them to the fireplace. Realised I need a handdrill, so I went out to to cut 2 barks and created the handdrill added the other bark to the fireplace and took back the rag. Then I ignite it. Potatoe was already in the slot, sine I placed the rag in kindling before.

I ignite it, get up, to close two doors and gets back and see that the potatoe has the "finished" texture already, I check it and it says burnt. I took it out and held it, was expecting to get some damage/injury from it. But it wasn't even warm yet. So I put it back in the cooking slot, and after a while it got warm, and then it got hot, still kept the same texture like "finished cooking".

If I should speculate.. The potatoe was put in the cooking slot from the absolut beginning, when I created the fireplace with the rag. What if the burnt counter started counting time from when it was put in the cooking slot, or something like that. While the temperature counter was functionting properly.

When you start a fire it takes some short time before you can cook. I was just away right after igniting, closing doors and back at the fire in like 4-5 seconds. Doors are right next to the stove.

( Some friends say it does get burnt quickly on a stove. But I did this specifically for testing the food temperature thing and if this is a potato feature I just discovered that for myself. )