THIS business philosophy, attributed to management consultant and educator Peter F. Drucker, challenges companies and entrepreneurs to disrupt presently held ideas or techniques to be able to survive competition and meet the growing demands of customers.
“Innovation is the specific function of entrepreneurship, whether in an existing business, a public-service institution or a new venture started by a lone individual in the family kitchen. It is the means by which the entrepreneur either creates new wealth-producing resources or endows existing resources with enhanced potential for creating wealth,” he wrote in the Harvard Business Review in 2002.
Successful innovation, he argues, however, is not about some flash of genius or a creative spark. It actually stems from hard work, methodically studying and analyzing several areas of opportunity, and the needs of, for example, the customer.
Drucker added that for an innovation to be effective, it has to be simple and straightforward. “Even the innovation that creates new users and new markets should be directed toward a specific, clear and carefully designed application.”
And it doesn’t have to be some grand production. “Effective innovations start small. They are not grandiose. It may be to enable a moving vehicle to draw electric power while it runs along rails, the innovation that made possible the electric streetcar. Or it may be the elementary idea of putting the same number of matches into a matchbox [it used to be 50]. This simple notion made possible the automatic filling of matchboxes and gave the Swedes a world monopoly on matches for half a century. By contrast, grandiose ideas for things that will ‘revolutionize an industry’ are unlikely to work.”
As in business and entrepreneurship, the culinary world thrives on innovation. Next year’s Madrid Fusion Manila (MFM), in fact, carries the theme “Innovating Tradition”. World-acclaimed chefs will be coming to the Philippines to talk about native ingredients and traditional cooking techniques, and how to make these responsive to these times.
And yet, some chefs and professional cooks equate “innovation” with showing off their culinary prowess, taking simple ingredients and, “inspired” by creative juices, coming up with something “new” or “better.” How many times have we been hoodwinked into dining at a restaurant by some hot new chef of the moment, and served dishes that claim to be the chef’s innovative take on a traditional dish?
I remember dining at some restaurant a few years ago with the celebrity chef serving his take on the kare-kare (stewed oxtail in peanut sauce). Yet, all he did was deconstruct the kare-kare, serving each ingredient of the traditional and well-loved Filipino dish—the oxtail, vegetables, peanut sauce and bagoong—separately on a plate.
Was there a need to make the kare-kare better? No. We enjoy all the ingredients cooked and stewed together in a pot, with the bagoong on the side. What did the chef achieve by deconstructing the kare-kare? Nothing. And I can bet even Big Sister’s own kusinera will be able beat the said celebrity chef a hundred times over when they serve their respective kare-kare versions in a blind taste test.
Innovation does not mean being clever or cute in the culinary world.
In my interview with Chef Elena Arzak at the first Madrid Fusion Manila in 2015, she talked about her cooking process, and how she created new dishes over time in her “laboratory”—testing, adjusting the ingredients or seasoning, then finally presenting them to her father, the eminent Chef Juan Mari, for approval. He will taste, then maybe tweak, but the father-daughter team will never put out a dish without each other’s input and thumbs-up.
Their dishes are never some spur-of-the-moment idea, although their beginnings may have been a flash of inspiration. Each dish still undergoes close study and refinement, and rigorous analysis and taste tests, before finally being served to diners. Innovation is never capricious.
In MFM 2018, a host of Michelin-starred chefs will be coming to Manila to speak about tradition and innovation. They include Mexico’s Roberto Ruiz (Punto MX, 1 star); Pepe Solla (Casa Solla, 1 star); Diego Gallegos (Sollo, 1 star); South Korea’s Mingoo Kang (Mingles, 1 star); Singapore’s LG Han (Labyrinth, 1 star); Aito Jeronimo Orive (Iggy’s in Singapore, 1 star); Japan’s Hajime Yoneda (Hajime, 2 stars); and Chicago’s Curtis Duffy (Grace, 3 stars).
Other chefs include Javier Estevez (La Taqueria), named Gastronomic Ambassador for Madrid; and Filipino-American Paul Qui of Kuneho in Austin, Texas, winner of Top Chef Season 9, and Best Chef Southwest awardee from the James Beard Foundation in 2012.
We look forward to all these chefs and what they have to say about the topic. Meanwhile, I’d like to have that old-style kare-kare now. Waiter!
- For news and updates on Asia’s most popular gastronomic event, visit www.madridfusionmanila.com.