I've been trying to figure out the effects that ingredients may have on individual recipes. For example, what's the difference between using Red Onions and Yellow Onions in Livers & Onions? What's the difference with and without a spice like Kvann? That's just one example.
I can't discern any rule whatsoever for how an ingredient affects the FEP gains of a recipe. Different combination of ingredients will give you wildly different results that I can't make sense out of. On top of that, the varying effects of different combination make such strangely small difference on a given stat as to make me think the following: the effects that different combinations of ingredients have is mostly procedurally generated.
There are no hard, comprehensible rule to it like "Red Onion in Livers and Onions always gives you +1 Int", and the only way to know the effects that a combination of ingredients is going to have exactly is to try it out and see.
It seems that there are some vague rule, for example, Yellow Onion often seems to give strength while Red onion often seems to give Intelligence. But the exactitude of the given bonuses cannot be determined in advance. Not to mention the effects of each ingredient affecting differing recipes differently. It seems that while certain ingredients often have the same effect, the magnitude of that effect varies randomly depending on the other ingredients in a way that doesn't seem consistent, even if trying to think in terms of certain foods havng certain penalties and other bonuses to a given stat.
There might also sometimes be more concrete, consistent rules for certain things, for example, how fish affects fishpie seems to match up exactly with the stats that the roasted fish would give you. How flour affects fishpie, though? I couldn't make it out. It seemed different per kind of fish.
Is the above true or am I just stupid? Why is this game a well of insanity like this? And why does it please me to my very core? Isn't life complicated enough? Apparently my heart says no.