Week 7 Post 1 - Creativity in the World of Cuisine

   - In haute cuisine, more than just the taste is considered when creating a dish. "“It wasn’t necessarily the best tasting, but it was the most exciting and profound dining experience I had ever had,” he told me by phone. He was struck not only by the immense technicality of the cooking and the wit behind many of the chef’s sensory tricks—like a nutmeg-sprinkled ostrich “eggshell” made of flash-frozen gorgonzola that had to be manually cracked open and consumed using only your fingers in 18 seconds before it puddled into oblivion—but also by Adrià’s ability to upend diners’ expectations"(Source 1). The entire experience of the diner consuming the food is carefully curated to the chef's liking and their idea of what they want their customer to feel.

   - Master chef Ferran Adrià uses complex illustrations to document his constant steam of ideas considering new dishes. These illustrations do not necessarily represent food, but are rather ways for Adrià to visualize and expand on his ideas.

   - "Get out of the building": After sampling the typically horrific entrees, Gordon immediately leaves the restaurant and walks into the neighborhood to chat with potential patrons. He casually, with true interest in the response, asks open-ended questions such as: What type of food do they enjoy? What prevents them from eating at the restaurant? What was your last experience like at the restaurant?
Gordon uses these discussions to better understand the needs of the audience, as well as to what is working and what needs improvement within the restaurant. Similar to Gordon, we as designers must “get out of the building” and interact with users to understand their needs and preferences. By observing and engaging in a dialog, we can identify problems and determine natural behavior. Therefore, we design a solution that solves their problems" (Source 2). If the root of creativity is solving a problem you find in the world, then Gordon Ramsay exemplifies this by finding what problems people have with a particular restaurant and finding creative ways to solve them.

   - When helping restaurants in Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay uses the creative principle of reduction when he reduces a restaurant's menu offerings from a high quantity of low quality dishes to a low quantity of higher quality dishes. This results in the dishes having better ingredients, a more defined style, a greater atmosphere, and chefs being more involved in their creation.

   - Ramsay not only creates tastes for the restaurants he helps, but he curates the feel and style of the restaurant by selecting furniture and color palettes to compliment the food. This goes to show again how more than just the physical product of creativity must be considered. The entire experience and aura of the product is equally as important.



Sources
1. "The King of Molecular Gastronomy Goes Back to the Drawing Board" https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/the-drawing-center-chef-ferran-adria-notes-on-creativity.html

2. "Design Lessons from Gordon Ramsay" https://uxdesign.cc/what-can-gordon-ramsey-teach-us-about-user-experience-design-2b4998032a70