Drop the name Fergus Henderson in a crowd of vegetarians and prepare for blank stares (or the evil eye).
The English chef is the man behind London's St. John restaurant, whose proud philosophy of wasting no part of an animal -- or what Henderson refers to as "nose to tail eating" -- jump-started a new wave of love in the late 1990s for traditional English and Scottish cuisine and has drawn near-religious fanaticism from meat lovers everywhere.
If you have his cookbook The Whole Beast, room should be made next to it for the just-released Beyond Nose to Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook. Expect no rosy-hued flourishes about texture and mouthfeel between these covers: Henderson's style, as he tackles more than 100 recipes from pork scratching to lardy cakes to -- yes -- squirrel, is witty, raunchy and real without ever straying from its high culinary standards. Get this book for the boar-lovers, rabbit-fanciers and terrine-heads on your holiday shopping list.
Plus: Fergus on the noble pig (viewer beware: this is not for the squeamish).
