The Complete Nose to Tail: A Kind of British Cooking

by Fergus Henderson, Justin Piers Gellatly

'It would be disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast; there is a set of delights, textural and flavoursome, which lie beyond the fillet.' Thus Fergus Henderson set out his stall when he opened St. John in 1995, now one of the world's most admired restaurants. His Nose to Tail books are full of exhilarating recipes for dishes that combine high sophistication with peasant thriftiness. Now the books are to be joined together in a compendious volume, The Complete Nose to Tail, with additional new recipes and more brilliant photography from Jason Lowe. This collection of recipes includes traditional favourites like Eccles cakes, devilled kidneys, and seed cake with a glass of Madeira, as well as many St. John classics for more adventurous gastronomes - roast bone marrow and parsley salad, deep-fried tripe and pot-roast half pig's head to name but a few. With a dozen new recipes on top of 250 existing ones, more than 100 quirky photos and exceptional production values, The Complete Nose to Tail is not only comprehensive but extremely desirable.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Nonfiction, Reference, Gastronomy, Food and Drink

416 pages, Hardcover

First published October 11, 2012

Reviews

[молодо́й челове́к · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you get enjoyment out of eating dead sentient lifeforms and turning your stomach into a graveyard full of flesh, cartilages and carcasses this is the book for you. You learn how to starve snails to death in a bucket surrounded by their own excrements. You learn how to cook squirrel and wobbly pigs feet jelly. Unfortunately most of the recipes are very basic or in Henderson’s own words “do(es) not count as a recipe, more like a few thoughts”. As humble and sympathetic Henderson may be, at the end of the day the problem with British offal cuisine lies in British cuisine itself.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book regularly features in the top cookery books lists. Practical reasons will make many of these recipes difficult for most readers, mainly due to sourcing ingredients like pigs trotters, brawn, woodcock and foraging ingredients.

The recipes themselves are easy enough to understand, but could be broken down into bullet points or be less flowery written.

Loses a point from me for two reasons; first is due to the unfunny jokes in each heading. Fruit Fool accompanied with "who are you calling a fool?" is groan worthy, but others are just plain odd. Second is due to the photography. I wonder if they were going for a White Heat vibe of showing life in a kitchen and didn't really achieve the same excitement and accuracy of White Heat. Then there's weird pictures of staff posing with offal and more unfunny jokey ones. A few more pictures of the recipes themselves would be welcome as they are not always easy to visualise from the text.

There is however a generous amount of ice cream recipe and sauces and preserves.

[Aylin · Rating 2 out of 5]

St. John is easily in my top three restaurants of all time. The atmosphere, the way the staff interact with guests, and most importantly the food are all so simple and perfect. Every bite makes you question everything you’ve eaten before and what a great meal should taste like. But this cookbook is a real letdown, unfortunately.

The unnecessary focus on showing so many raw, butchered animal parts feels quite disturbing. It makes you stop and think deeply about eating meat, though I doubt that was ever the chefs' real intention. Turning the pages, I felt shocked and it actually made me wish I were vegan. As brilliant as the restaurant’s menu is, the recipes in this book feel equally unsuccessful.

The sections on veg dishes and desserts are lovely and worth checking out, and honestly the only reason I am giving this book two stars.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked: the author's voice, in which chickpeas of appropriate doneness are "submissive" and rich puddings are "steadying." The weird pictures of the author's friends (i presume) posing with odd ingredients instead of the traditional pictures of completed dishes.

Disliked: the food. One day, someone will convince me that tripe is delicious or whatever. This ain't the day, and this ain't the book. Nothing about Britain and its people convinces me that their cuisine will be the one to redeem gross bits of animals.

[Connor Oswald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every book

Every book should teach you something. This one taught me two things. The first is that I would go back to the UK and learn more about their cooking because as it stands I don't want to try half of the recipes in here. Second is that cookbooks ought to be in print and not digital.

[Avi · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a 3.5 really. But decent. Some interesting recipes and techniques.

[Donut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owned this for years, finally got round to reading it front to back. A complete delight, as expected.

[rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a total and absolute joy to read.

[Cabracrazy18 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel very strongly that when killing an animal, one should use every bit of it. I want to cook and eat every part I can. I purchased this book hoping to find recipes to eat the stranger bits. That is indeed what this book delivered, however, it calls for so many unusual ingredients and uncommon cooking procedures that I'm not finding it very useful. This book is definitely for the more established 'Chef' than the homesteader trying to figure out how to get her family to enjoy deer liver. I do want to note tho- this is a beautiful book! It is huge and heavy and has a ribbon bookmark made into it. I am going to enjoy seeing it sitting on my shelf with my other cookbooks! I just wish it was going to be more useful to me.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fergus Henderson is the Yoda of nose to tail. The conversational tone of the recipes makes this extra enjoyable.

[Dean Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read the remake and it's not too different, so it's a good book and if you don't own it, you should get it now.