it seems simple enough to have some sort of furniture or chest - an ice box or cooler that would reduce or eliminate the decay process of food (especially prepared food made at the cookery) and made using maybe ash cement/mushroom bricks, ladybird shell and tough gunk/lilypad wax, pond moss/fuzz, and mint shards/globs/jewel

This already exists in the game. 

Yes, there is a Refrigerator in the game. But it's so very late game its practically useless. |
It should have been an early tier/game item so that it could properly be used.

After looking around, it found that it's called Fresh Storage.  Looking for Grounded Refrigerator returns too many real world results. It should be made available much sooner.