Even an artist as creative as Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a professional, so you can break them like an artist.” You can’t break the rules if you don’t know what they are to begin with.

To understand what’s new and what’s useful, you must first learn what’s old and what doesn’t work—which is the perspective you’ll gain from getting grounded in culinary fundamentals. Expertise also enables efficiency: You’ll stand on the shoulders of giants instead of having to re-discover that which others spent centuries figuring out.

“Kitchen creativity” is a relatively new concept in some regards if you consider that we’ve been cooking for two million years and yet it was just 200 years ago that the world’s greatest chef’s focus was systemization (that is, Auguste Escoffier’s turn-of-the-19th-century codification of French cuisine). After decades of faithfully reproducing Escoffier’s classic recipes, French chefs finally dared to depart from them, modifying and lightening their dishes in a movement that became known as nouvelle cuisine. As a result, there has been more creativity in food in the past 50 years than in any other period in world history.

Up until that point, classic dishes generally evolved from local ingredients in harmonious combinations that caught the fancy of locals, achieving popularity and becoming part of the culinary canon. The role of restaurant critics was initially to judge whether a restaurant’s version of a classic dish was authentic and well-executed or not.

THE GAULT & MILLAU* TEN COMMANDMENTS OF NOUVELLE CUISINE (1973)

1. Avoid unnecessary complications.

2. Shorten cooking times.

3. Shop regularly at the market.

4. Shorten the menu.

5. Don’t hang or marinate game.

6. Avoid too-rich sauces.

7. Return to regional cooking.

8. Investigate the latest techniques.

9. Consider diet and health.

10. Invent constantly.

* The influential restaurant guide founded in France in 1965.

American chefs—many of whom had served apprenticeships in France where they were exposed to these “new, radical” ideas—returned to the United States with these “commandments” in mind. The melting pot of America became a hotbed of culinary change. The boundaries of creativity expanded—including new combinations of ingredients (from the farthest reaches of the world, as well as untapped hyperlocal sources of foraged ingredients), new techniques (from sous-vide to spherification), and new presentations (from snacks to small plates to pre-desserts).

The culinary world saw innovations in codification (via Escoffier) at the turn of the century, and in the lightening of cuisine [via nouvelle cuisine] in the 1970s, and in the expansion of techniques and presentation (via Adrià, et al) since. Today, we’re in the midst of an elevation of “goodness” in cuisine, as chefs strive to create the most delicious dishes with the best-available ingredients that do the least harm—to both sentient beings (e.g., healthful, unprocessed or minimally processed, non-GMO, humanely raised) and to the environment (e.g., local, sustainable, organic, biodynamic).

As our awareness of food and the myriad implications of growing it, cooking it, and consuming it continue to expand, our creativity with food is in turn continuing to expand.

We forget that during the “nouvelle cuisine” wave of 35 years ago, we never talked about produce. Creativity was the sole requirement. A chef as respected as Pierre Troisgros could not have cared less about knowing whether his salmon came from Scotland or Norway, or whether it was wild. Alain Chapel was a forerunner of the new movement because during the 1980s he was obsessed with the quality and freshness of the produce. Today we have 50 butters that are better than the best butters available 35 years ago. Each restaurateur has become an expert in dozens of products and can recognize the difference among varieties and the excellence of each.

—ALAIN DUCASSE, as quoted in the Harvard Business Review