"Austrian" cooking

An Austrian theory of cooking … or a cooking metaphor for Austrian entrepreneurial theory por Lynne Kiesling:

One way to create value in cooking is through new combinations of what Mike calls “raw elements”. We can think of three categories of raw elements in cooking: ingredients, cooking techniques or the producer’s “interpretation”, and taste or the consumer’s “interpretation” ..

The first important point in this cooking-economics connection is fundamental to economics: the subjective nature of value. The consumer’s interpretation-perception-assessment of the dish is the most clearly subjective element of this dynamic process. Much of value rests in the perception of the ultimate consumer ..

The second important point that Mike raises is the entrepreneurship one. Value creation from cooking doesn’t just come from doing the same thing over and over, adding more cooks and more stoves to increase scale (OK, there’s some value in that, but diminishing returns). The cook who explores novel combinations of the raw elements (garlic-artichoke foam from a CO2 canister atop a sous-vide cooked and seared-finished halibut steak, anyone?) is an entrepreneur ..

Which brings us to the third important point in my Austrian theory of cooking/cooking as a metaphor for Austrian entrepreneurship. A system that will yield the most valuable and pleasing combinations of entrepreneurial economic or cooking activities will have low entry barriers (anyone can try to cook!) and a robust feedback-based system of error correction ..

Both cooking and economic activity are inherently purposeful, creative, and entrepreneurial, and are better when done in an environment that combines low entry barriers and robust error correction.