Currently, spices may lower the FEPs from a piece of food under what they would be normally if the spice quality is far lower than the food.
I propose spices should work like pepper, where q10 will always give a bonus, increasing with spice quality, perhaps up to a cap? Perhaps if something is an 'optional' ingredient, it should not contribute to final item quality. Either that, or you should be able to apply a spice after the item is complete to 'transform' the stats, like a clothing gild.
This would of course not be the case with items requiring spice in the base recipe, butter-chived trout, spicy salad, etc.
Thoughts are appreciated