I’ll have the mushrooms sautéed in mashed banana, topped with salmon eggs. No, wait, I’ll try the chocolate-covered rare lamb fillet with vanilla ice-cream and seaweed butter, instead.
People don’t want original, even if they say they do. What people want is something that’s familiar, but just a little bit different to before. Evolution, not revolution.
Original is hard. It’s hard to stomach. Hard to make. Hard to sell. That’s why genres exist. Every genre – whether it’s food, books, or music – has a formula. Being ‘original’ really means taking that formula and tweaking just one element, or two, to make something that feels decidedly new.