So….. I said I would get a post up every other week, and one did not go up last week. I forgot about it until I woke up Sunday morning with nothing to write! I COULD blame my new grad school workload, but that’s actually not true. Grad school has been difficult for a very different reason. I need ideas. Specifically, I need good, feasible ideas that are interesting to my collaborator(s), potential journal editors and I.

Guess what? The same criteria apply to creative cooking. I am not particularly great at either yet, but I have some things to say, so here goes.

Is it interesting?

Novel recipes need to be interesting AKA creative AND meaningful. Being “creative” in cooking isn’t actually too hard. A hack is to be “interdisciplinary” and import flavours and techniques. For example, bulgolgi in tacos, forming ramen into a burger bun, curing chicken legs like a ham. Sometimes, a simple ingredient substitution (e.g., swapping scallops with lobster, adding a spice/ flavouring to a “plain” item) is enough to qualify as “creative”, or at least novel. Admittedly, most of my recipes and my research proposed ideas so far only make trivial additions to existing works….. or have already been done….

Meaningful is a higher bar. Being creative for the sake of creativity doesn’t make a good dish. The changes should add to the taste/experience of a dish or simplify it so that more people can access it. There are plenty of examples of creative trends that lack meaning. My favourite to pick on is rolled ice cream.

How pretty! How creative! But what does rolling the ice cream add? IMO nothing. The flavour and texture are the same, if not worse because of the lower temperature. BUT, it takes much longer to prepare and is less able to accommodate toppings and mix-ins.

Is it feasible?

I would love to study networks. To do so, I get serious about stats and CS. Lack of access to ingredients and technique is also why I avoid certain dishes (e.g., macaroons, sushi, sous vide). The obvious solutions are to either obtain the skills or give up.

Recently, I’ve committed to learning stats and CS. I am NOT going to spend the time and money to learn now to slice sushi. With that said, I am working to expand my skillset and have (soft) committed to learning pastry and molecular gastronomy.

The third option is to find someone with the skills to execute my ideas. It works very well for writing papers. Unfortunately, this option will be out of budget and network for a while…….

Is that all?

Many good ideas get lost in the shuffle or never get done because it doesn’t appeal to a particular audience (e.g., serving french dishes to dad). Some not so great ideas get traction for catching a trend (e.g., ice cream rolls). Luckily these aren’t problems for me in the kitchen. I can always find a new audience and I’m not concerned about “going viral”. Unfortunately these aren’t problems for me in my actual research right now. Both would mean I have feasible ideas…….

That’s all for this week. Thanks for listen to my TED talk. I’ll be back with a recipe next time. Until then, bye!

• Travel