Creativity in the kitchen?

Riding the el down to the office this morning, I zoned out for a while and my mind took some less-frequently-traveled paths. I can’t quite account for how I got where I ended up, but undoubtedly the Top Chef series (and, in particular, the polish sausage fiasco) got me wondering. One of the things that intrigues me about professional chefs…oh, hell, just about all good chefs…is their creativity. I know that if I were given a challenge a la Top Chef that I have serious doubts about my ability to perform on demand.

Let me put that a little more precisely: if I walked into a kitchen and someone said to me, here is your key ingredient (guess that sounds more like Iron Chef than Top Chef), make us dinner, I don’t think that I’d come up with some of the wonderfully creative things that I often see on Top Chef. Particularly given their extraordinary time constraints and (for many of them at least, their youth). Frankly, even if time weren’t a constraint, I don’t know that my imagination is really up to that kind of resourcefulness.

I’ve been cooking for myself (and others) for over 30 years and though I’ve made my share of excellent dinners, I don’t think any of them would be described as particularly inventive or surprising (in a positive way). Not that I’m complaining. I’m happy to have the skills I do and the opportunity to use them. But creativity will never be a hallmark of my cooking.

I enjoy meals of both types: the wildly imaginative, extraordinarily unexpected combinations and presentations as well as the classic types of meals. And everything in between. But that’s what got me thinking: where does that creativity come from? Do creative chefs learn that skill? Is it something that comes with time and familiarity with ingredients? Are you born with it?

I wouldn’t mind having just a little more of it; maybe it’s just a matter of spending more time thinking before doing. But I’m not so sure. What do you think?

I think it's like creativity in any art form -- for some people it flows like water, others only have rare strikes once in a while. But you can do certain things to push yourself to be more creative.

It's interesting to me that you think it's unlikely that you could be creative with Top Chef or Iron Chef style restrictions, because at least on a personal level, artificially applying those restrictions is what's been most helpful to me in being creative in the kitchen. By limiting endless possibilities, I think those restrictions force your mind to really consider all the remaining angles you can take. Drop me in a huge grocery store with unlimited funds and no rules and I feel paralyzed. But tell me I have to make a great squash dish and I start thinking about what types of squash there are and how they differ, what flavors go with squash, what techniques I can use to pull different flavors out of squash -- and things just flow naturally from there. Same thing with walking a farmers market. Basing your dinner on whatever looks fresh focuses you. It's gotten to the point where I tend to place arbitrary restrictions on myself because I make better food when I do. If I go to the store thinking I'm going to get something for dinner, it turns out like everything else I've already made. But if I pick a technique or ingredient that I don't use very often and tell myself that I'm going to base a dish around that, it both expands the number of things I'm comfortable making, gets me more focused and forces me to be creative. I end up making better food.

While I am by no means a chef, this subject often precipitates discussion between members of my family.

I am a creative cook, as is my Mother-In-Law. My mother, and other family members, are decidedly by-the-book types. I'd say that there is one major difference between the two factions: willingness to fail (and willingness to be remembered more for your failures than your sucesses) is the hallmark of the creative types: those who fear long-lived stories about the soupy bananna cream pie or the failed salmon mousse - cook by the book. My cooking can be described like the little girl with the curl, but for me, the process of discovering how things work together is as fun as watching people enjoy my successes.

The cooks on other side of this equation are famous for entertaining, and you can guarantee that they never have to hide their failures (my Mother doesn't even own a dog...ours are my most useful culinary disaster-relief utensils) However, if you're willing to bear with me and my MIL, as my own family does, we can come out with some really interesting and good food. Interestingly, though our failures are the stuff of legend, we are known as the "good cooks" of the family.

It all depends on where your priorities lie...

Dmnkly wrote:It's interesting to me that you think it's unlikely that you could be creative with Top Chef or Iron Chef style restrictions, because at least on a personal level, artificially applying those restrictions is what's been most helpful to me in being creative in the kitchen.

Yes, I agree - this is one reason I started the Food Desert project.

I know I don't have the experience or even the technique for some of the stuff I see on ICA/TC, but I don't usually feel I'd be completely lost. (Yes, I could come up with a "Magenta Drunken Polish Sausage" dish without using an actual kielbasa).

I might need to reference a cookbook or three, I would certainly need a couple of sous to help, but yes, I do think I can have fun with the creativity.

If you've hacked software code (in the classic sense, not the system security cracking sense), you can hack a recipe. We've had a lot of fun with our annual xmas parties: Asian/Continental mashups featuring creme de crecy-filled gyoza, mushroom and seaweed bruschetta.

It's like other art, where you have to be comfortable with your media: you wouldn't try to mix the styles of Picasso and Monet unless you were familiar with both. Understand how pasta behaves, how meat browns, how flavors combine, and you can start getting flexible.

I think that one of the elements that impresses those amatuers among us is that the contestants are able to come up with creative ideas and delicious dishes under such time constraints. But...I don't think that the ability to quickly create new dishes is something that necessarily sets good chefs apart from the bad. I would suggest that there are magnificent chefs who couldn't perform well under that time pressure, just as there are bad chefs who can. I think it's no different with any specialized skill.

For example, there are artists who can create a work of art in minutes, and for others it takes weeks, months or years. Does that make the slower artist a worse artist?

I write for a living. I've had a lot of practice, but that doesn't mean I can always write a great article in a short amount of time. (I've been staring at the computer screen since 9 am today and only have 700 words of an article to show for it.)

Or what about the photographer? Yes, it only takes a fraction of a second for the shutter to click, but the photographer may have spent hours setting up a particular shot.

I don't want to diminish the skills of the Top Chef contestants--because, to be sure, many of them are very talented. But I'd suggest that they each probably have a "bag of tricks"--skills they've mastered with a lot of practice, flavor combinations that they know work together because they've done a lot of experimenting--and they turn to this bag of tricks on the timed challenges.

chgoeditor wrote:I don't want to diminish the skills of the Top Chef contestants--because, to be sure, many of them are very talented. But I'd suggest that they each probably have a "bag of tricks"--skills they've mastered with a lot of practice, flavor combinations that they know work together because they've done a lot of experimenting--and they turn to this bag of tricks on the timed challenges.

I agree.

Even as a writer, I have my tricks. For example, when I used to regularly do overnight theater reviews, I'd do my research ahead of time and draft the basics on the play, the director, the prominent actors, the peculiarities of the theater, etc. Then I only had to plug in impressions of the performance itself on deadline. If it was a play I'd seen before, it became even easier because I knew what to look for in the production.

I have talked to chefs who've participated in culinary contests and I know they do practice ahead of time.

I expect many of these cooks have rehearsed dishes into which any number of different ingredients can be plugged in. Like the Chinese restaurant where you can order the same item with pork, chicken or shrimp. If the secret ingredients turn out to be items they're familiar with, they're ahead of the game.

That said, if you want to be creative in your own cooking, Mhays has the right idea. A willingness to fail is essential. It helps to have a good taste memory. If you know how X and Y taste, it's easier to imagine how they might taste when mixed together.

One scholarly model of creativity (there are many) suggests that there are four types of creativity -- or creative preferences. Most of us define creativity too narrowly. If you think about it, creativity can be expressed in four ways, by those who are

1) Clarifiers --define the problem
2) Ideators -- come up with options
3) Developers -- elaborate and structure
4) Implementers -- get it done.

I'm an ideator first and a clarifier second. That's why I love the free-flowing information on LTH. I also like to pick nits occasionally, like a few others on the board!

As a chef I gain creativity from things everywhere, all the time. When people ask me questions similar to this one I usually try to have them relate cooking to there personal career or serious hobbies. Although different in nature than many careers, cooking requires a certain amount of problem solving on a daily basis. If you were a bus driver who just had a crazy board without paying you would probably look to things that have worked in the past to remedy the problem. Maybe you would talk to them, wait until they pay or call security. The answer you come up with will probably be based on a previous experience and some times it doesn't work so you cycle through your options until something does. Chefs, during there career gain knowledge of things just like this and in specific areas. Technique, taste, situation, thinks you have eaten, things you have read about and presentation are just a few ways that a chef can get the crazy off the bus.