Profile of Fergus Henderson, author of Nose to Tail Eating

His first book has been named as one of the top 50 cookbooks of all time and he has influenced many high profile chefs and writers around the world. We look at the career of influential British chef Fergus Henderson and find out what ‘nose to tail eating’ is all about.  

Fergus Henderson’s background
When Fergus Henderson took over the French House pub in Soho with his wife, Margot, he had only a little experience in professional kitchens. Born to architect parents, he chose to also study architecture, before deciding that cooking was really for him. He opened his first restaurant, St John near Smithfield Market, with Trevor Gulliver in 1994. St John was different to other restaurants of the mid-1990s, which created fiddly dishes, piled high with delicate foods. While other chefs were busy arranging micro herbs on large plates, Henderson embarked on a whole new and much more basic concept: ‘nose to tail eating’.

Nose to Tail Eating – what’s it all about?
While some might think that it’s squeamish or even disrespectful to eat the whole animal (brains, heart, tripe and all) Fergus Henderson claims that it’s only “polite”. In a 1994 interview with the Daily Telegraph he said: “It seems common sense and even polite to the animal to use all of it. Rather than being testosterone-fuelled blood-lust, it actually seems to be a gentle approach to meat eating.” And he’s right. As shoppers and diners we all too often select the most popular cuts of meat, pre-packed in plastic trays and wrapped in cling film. Our fridges are stocked full of chops, steaks and fillets – but what happens to the rest of the animal? If cooked properly, offal can offer much more flavour and texture than most of the standard cuts that line supermarket shelves. At St John, diners can tuck into dishes such as chitterlings (intestines), roast bone marrow, pig’s spleen and lamb sweetbreads. The ‘nose to tail’ concept made perfect sense and his book Nose to Tail Eating – A Kind of British Cooking (published in 1999) was named by the Observer as one of the top 50 cookbooks of all time. But he was never out to create controversy, telling the Guardian in 2004: “Our menu isn’t designed to be a challenge. It’s there to give pleasure.”

His Fergus Henderson’s fans
With such a basic but common sense concept, it wasn’t long before Henderson started to gain fans within the food industry. Anthony Bourdain has said that Henderson’s dish of roast bone marrow and parsley salad would be his ‘Death Row’ meal and The Times restaurant critic AA Gill famously said that he had few regrets but did regret not giving Henderson a better review when he first opened. American chef Mario Batali has praised his work and restaurant critic Jay Rayner gave St John his thumbs up, writing in his review that “Henderson believes in letting good ingredients speak for themselves.”

What has made him Fergus Henderson so successful?
One of the things about Fergus Henderson is that, despite his success, Fergus Henderson seems incredibly normal. Those who have met him say that he is modest and has none of the typical "celebrity chef" ego or fiery temper, which immediately warms you to him. He also believes in a practice that respects the animal you’re eating and cuts waste; something that, in our pre-packed, cling-filmed age it would be worth bearing in mind. Offal is usually cheap, is also nutritious and offers a whole new range of flavours and textures to dishes. More recently, Henderson has had to take time out of the kitchen due to Parkinson’s disease (he was diagnosed in the late 1990s) but takes an active role in his businesses and writes regular food columns for Gourmet Traveller Australia magazine. And with bones and offal being touted as one of the main key food trends for 2012 it’s likely that nose to tail eating, along with Fergus Henderson and St John - will become even more influential to chefs, writers and diners around the world.