Creativity
One of the better food shows on Netflix is called “Chefs Table.” If you look through the early seasons, one of the chefs they feature is Grant Achatz of Alinea restaurant in Chicago.
Most people think that one needs to be creative to be a good chef, as if we spend each day thinking of new and inventive ways to combine ingredients and techniques to wow our guests. We’re usually far too busy for that. Not all of us, though. Take the time to look into what Grant is doing and you’ll see true, way-out-there creativity. He was influenced largely by working for Thomas Keller at The French Laundry and for the Adria brothers at El Bulli in Spain, both known for innovative cuisine and elaborate tasting menus featuring avant-garde techniques and exotic ingredients. He became one of the most influential chefs in the world in just a few short years.
In the early 2000’s, influenced largely by El Bulli, and later by Alinea, many talented chefs began showcasing their creativity by doing “tasting menus” of up to twenty or more courses of bite-sized dishes, often highlighting certain flavor combinations or cooking techniques. It grew to be so theatrical that the food became secondary to the “experience” of it all. These marathon dinners stretched over hours and became more and more expensive and tedious.
Of course, Michelin ate it up. as did the James Beard people and local and national critics. So of course, everyday chefs started experimenting with their own dishes and tasting menus. While some of them made a pretty good effort, they quickly learned it wasn’t practical to keep the whole thing going without large staffs of unpaid help doing the dirty work like the more famous chefs had at their disposal.
The whole “long-format dining experience” zeitgeist eventually ran its course and now, for the most part, we’re back to more familiar food, sometimes with more creative presentations, but still within the comfort zone of the guests.
Would I like to have a big round table with a half-dozen talented cooks and chefs standing around trying to figure out the best way to make a “magic strawberry” out of pureed and frozen tomatoes? The thought never occurred to me. Nor did the thought of making rosemary-scented fart pillows, or reducing beautiful fresh morels to foam, to squirt on a slice of pheasant terrine. I do best when I just shut off the noise in my mind, taste something, and wait for my brain to quietly tell me what I want to eat with it. After a lifetime of tasting and cooking things, it’s become pretty intuitive. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Have you ever met a mechanic who listened to your car run for a few seconds and knew right away what was wrong with it? Cooking isn’t much different.
The difference between magic and mechanics is perspective and experience.
Putting the gimmicks and pretense aside, I think a perfectly cooked lamb shank and a glass of Domaine Tempier is real alchemy and a testament to someone who long ago had the creativity to put all the flavors and textures together to create that sublime experience. It would add nothing of value to the dish if the shank were suspended from some kind of apparatus so as you cut the meat from the bone it dropped gently into a small well of red wine sauce you could retrieve it from. Everything that is needed is already there. Just enjoy it.
When you listen to someone who really understands wine or spirits describe the aromas and flavors they sense when tasting something, you’ll find wonderful creativity in the way they express it.
But creativity isn’t always positive. The minute you start thinking of yourself as “creative,” you should slow down a bit and think of why you feel that way.
Creativity is driven by the ego, which can be notoriously hard to manage; Dali often referred to himself in the third person, and there are countless other examples among artists and musicians who were very difficult to work with, many of whom eventually crashed and burned. Cooking is no different.
Misplaced and excessive ego created the stereotype of the temperamental, tortured artist chef. I used to feel as a general rule, that the chefs who insisted on being addressed as “Chef” were usually the ones who most lacked real aptitude, but a recently added corollary is that real chefs can often be distinguished from poseurs by the number of food related tattoos they have scrawled up and down their arms and necks; the less ink, the better the chef. Why? Because the real chef quietly puts his ego on the plate every day, takes no shortcuts, doesn’t follow every trend that comes along, and puts his focus on the whole experience more than just on his food plating and social media likes.
Maybe I’m just too old-school
At the end of the day, the way I see it is that there are basically two kinds of chefs- one who looks out over a dining room of happy guests and thinks “See how good I am?” and the other, who thinks “Look at them enjoying themselves!” I’ve always tried to be among the latter. I know there are many chefs out there better than me and I can sleep just fine at night with that knowledge. I try to be the best I can be. It’s less risky to my ego, and much less annoying to everyone I work with.