Incremental improvements occur all the time
Just when you think that there can be no further improvements in cooking you get devices like the Panasonic "FlasheXpress" toaster oven. This changed the entire 'metal box with heating element' design by simply replacing those traditional heating elements by IR emitters in silica tubes. The result is a miniature oven that doubles as a very competent toaster and, unlike most of the breed, does it wiithout requiring an extensive warmup period or becoming red-hot while its working.
Another Japanese innovation that's often overlooked is the rice cooker. Their culture uses a lot of rice and they have varieties, like to cook it properly and keep it warm without it turning into an inedible mass. This requires some design ingenuity. If you've not experienced one of these devices (a proper one, not the $10 cheapie) then they're worth a look.
The problem with innovation in home cooking is that its not really something that works at home (unless you've got a really big family). Even the humble curry benefits from being made in really big batches, naan isn't something you can make at home easily (and frozen just lacks that je ne sais quoi). Sous vide and flash freezing aren't appropriate for home use -- they're like home jam making, great if all you want is to live off that same batch of jam for the next decade. This is what prompted the rise of instant dinners, part cooked so all you do is microwave ("Go get a TeeVee dinner and cook it up....."), convenient, practical, wasteful and nutritionally suspect. Maybe I'll just stick to 'boring'.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
