Deconstructing the myth of Culinary Creativity!
First of all, let’s go through the basic definition of the word Creativity:
- Creativity is the capability or act of conceiving something original, unusual and trendy.
Culinary Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into delicious & eyes catching dishes. Culinary Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the culinary world in new ways, to find hidden patterns & ingredients, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, technique, products and to generate some kind of ultimate harmony. Culinary Creativity involves four basic processes: learning the culinary fundamental, gathering all necessary information, thinking, then producing.
“If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are virtually imaginative but not truly creative”
Before moving on, I divided the Culinary Creativity in 3 distinctive groups:
- The Culinary creativity just for the sake of being creative . I found nowadays, that due to the fashion of being famous, some professional are just trying to create without being truly creative (most of the time, those pseudo creation are just some kind of culinary plagiary). They just combine exotic ingredients, displaying them in colorful manners and without taking in considerations the rules of the nature which should be applied in order create the ultimate harmony. This kind of culinary creativity is targeting the Socmed clientele who mainly follow the trend of the moment (it’s normally go along with some kind of very fancy explanation of story to back it up), and for sure it will be very ephemeral!
- The Culinary creativity for giving a meaning to your life. That’s the kind of culinary creativity which will give personal satisfaction to the creator. This creativity is closely related to the personality of the person (even perhaps to his/her soul), the results which might be outstanding will reflect the person’s own creative brand, vision, philosophy & style
- The Culinary creativity for eternity. This is the ultimate culinary creativity, the one which imply more than just a brilliant mind. This creativity could change the way of how we perceive certain food, certain dishes & certain ingredients. Those creations will enter one day or another in the culinary fundamental & will be regarded soon or later as institutional (IE: Egg Benedict, Caesar Salad, Croissant, Indonesian Nasi Goreng, Italian Spaghetti Bolognese, Hamburger…)
The first secret of the culinary creativity is to respect the form it takes in yourself and in others without any judgment (positive & negative alike). This does not mean that any work resulting from a creative process is interesting, great, and worth of interest, but the desire to create is always an important value for anyone who want to be a creator. Maybe it sounds obvious like that, but if that were the case, we would all be uninhibited creators. So let’s start our creative journey in order to impact positively our life as well as impacting the life of others!.
One of the question that I am often been asked by aspirant chef, professional or not is: what do I need to be creative in the culinary world?
My answer is as follow, simply follow the next 9 steps!
But my first advise is “Be proud of your culinary creativity skills, develop them, maintain them, cherish them. It will be some of your greatest assets..it will give you real freedom in life”.
1/ A tired mind, will never deliver great & genuine Culinary Creativity. A rested mind has more energy, more “peps”, to convert creative thoughts into outstanding reality.
2/ When you are facing with a creative dead end, just entrust your subconscious by asking it to help you in finding the right solution (at this stage, meditation can be very useful). It is true that thoughts & dreams communicate often in very obscure messages, but over the years, your subconscious and yourself should become best friends, understanding each others for the sake of your personal creative development. Dreams & thoughts, moreover, do not always contribute in finding the most direct answers to potential questions, but they often help in resolving the blockages that prevent us from finding the right answer to problems which might occurs during the path of the creativity process.
3/ Never stop doing research & developing your culinary knowledge; this means studying hard and knowing very well all your fundamental, doing some culinary survey, wandering in the nature, buying cookbooks, interacting with people & colleagues, listening to programs and spending a lot of time “Hand On” in the kitchen …(practice makes perfects…)
4/ Give yourself those much needed “brainstorming” moments, either in solo or with a bunch of people/friends that you can trust and who are sharing the same passion as yours. Whether with a notebook and pencil, or in your mind, you should take a lot of time to think (preparing) before you start cooking. Letting the idea come to life and grow in itself before externalizing it in a project, you should feel like giving it some kind of creative momentum. It is true, that with great practice & control on yourself, it becomes completely possible for you to create combinations of flavor in your head and taste the results virtually in your mind…before moving on to the R & D process!
5/ It is said that everything has already been created and that there is nothing left to invent. Let me genuinely doubt about it. It is true that our civilization is not new, it is true that we use a know-how, a vocabulary, an aesthetic which was created before we were even born. But I am sure that all possible combinations of “everything” with “everything” have not yet been skimmed off, which give us, still a lot of opportunity to be explored. I do agree that not all combination of ideas are worth to be explored further, but I can assure you that by adding an idea, to your project, you will give to your creativity the means to truly innovate, to think outside the box . Even an imperfect combination between words, concepts and ideas has the potential to pull you out of a culinary creative dead end in order to deliver some outstanding results.
6/ Refuse of being creative just for the sake of following the trend. Just be yourself, be ahead of the pack, create the trends….think out of the box! Culinary creativity, will give yourself the obligation to seek and find some new angle or facet which will bring some new inspirational lights directly on your creative ideas.
7/ Always stimulate your intellect and all its senses in different ways, not necessarily related to the culinary field or any other related interests in order to encourage some kind of divergent thinking. Although we tend to direct our creativity towards a specific subject or project, creativity as a process should not always be focused towards the same object, otherwise it risks what I call to reach the stage of“atrophy” (Sorry, this is what is currently happening to the French gastronomy ….) Sensory experiences, travel, meeting people, all that will enrich the human experience, also might feed your creativity.
8/ Learn on how to take risks and how to accept failure (just be a responsible human being). You will definitely face some situation, where not all your ideas will be judged potentially good. In fact, your first idea will be rarely considered as the best one, but the process of developing it, externalizing it, also allows you to look at it in a different angle which might trigger some new flash of inspiration. And if it is still insufficient & feel that you are going nowhere, then just let it go (do not burn your energy on project which didn’t motive you). Some people call that a failure. Personally, & after already few negatives experiences, I totally agree that failure is part of the culinary creative process.
9/ Convert the creative ideas into sustainable work. Everyday, I meet a large number of people who consider themselves very creative and who are obviously full of great ideas, but unfortunately those ideas will remain ideas without further action (most of the people that I met, by the way, are contaminated with the fear virus)! But I can assure you that accomplishing & finalizing a creative project brings gifts that thought & idea alone cannot generate : pride, connection with the world, recognition (sometimes), spiritual enlightenment, feeling of integrity and authenticity, putting you on the map of creative mind, ecetera …!!!
The main challenge for many of us, seems that we are lacking of focus (and we are scared of focusing our energy on the unknown), we are jumping from one idea to another without being able to make the choice on which idea to choose (again scared to take the wrong decision). Here is my tested method to avoid that (at least minimizing this problem) : I have a large white board fixed on the wall, in front of my eyes, where I write almost all of my ideas and existing & potential projects, and I oblige myself to keep it updated on daily basis for 365 days a year & I hold myself accountable for respecting those rules, that’s help me in having everything done on schedule as well as being able to follow my own creative pace in real time. I call it personal discipline, and in Culinary Creativity you will need it if you want to succeed!!
Least but not last, the true value of your culinary creativity is not only measured by the number of Like on the photo that you will have posted on your favorite soc-med account, and accepting potential failure is also accepting to live with the fact that despite the personal appreciation of your ideas and the hard work toward your goals, there are times when you wont get the recognition that you was expecting. This does not mean that you will have to stop ignoring the comments that you will receive, just consider them as some kind of positive informative modules that may or may not be integrated one day or another, into your culinary creative process, of course depending of the circumstances!
Happy Creative Cooking!
Some “Creative” Quotes:
“Creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our ‘inner’ pool of resources — knowledge, insight, information, inspiration and all the fragments populating our minds — that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world and to combine them in extraordinary new ways.” — Maria Popova, Brainpickings
“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.” — Rollo May, The Courage to Create
Antoine Audran
Follow me on IG at @thechefinbatik
Comments & suggestions at: a_audran@outlook.com
