Brainiac

BLOOD CAKE AND fried eggs. Deep-fried lamb brains. Duck hearts on toast. These are just a few of the highlights from my current favorite book in the kitchen, The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating, by Fergus Henderson. The iconoclastic Henderson, an English architect turned self-taught chef, owns St. John, a quirkily modern yet deeply rooted London restaurant whose most popular dish is roasted bone marrow on toast. Tony Bourdain, whose loathing of vegetarians is well documented in his chef's tell-all Kitchen Confidential, is a devoted fan of both Henderson and his book, which was originally published in England in 2000. So is Alice Waters, who recently hosted Henderson at Chez Panisse with a menu including crispy pig's-ear salad.

What makes the book, and Henderson's writing, so alluring is the understated, droll Britishness of it. For him, humble dishes like brawn and jellied eels are a British workingman's birthright. While Bourdain exerts himself in several pages of fulsome praise of the tough-guy joys of blood and guts, Henderson simply notes, "This is a celebration of cuts of meats, innards and extremities that are more often forgotten or discarded in today's kitchen; it would seem disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast: there is a set of delights, textural and flavorsome, which lie beyond the filet." More important, he passes along the great but unrealized home truth: "Do not be afraid of cooking, as your ingredients will know and misbehave."

In writing this book, Henderson faces the fact – head on, as it were – that eating meat involves the life and death of living creatures. Regarding a salad of snails and oak-leaf lettuce, he notes, "You can pick the snails for this salad yourself ... but it is quite emotional." It's not just a matter of a few turns round the garden with a pail; the snails have to be imprisoned for several days to purge their last meal before they can be eaten. At a house party in Scotland, after Henderson and his friends collect "a feast's worth" of snails, remorse descends. "Days seemed to pass watching the poor captive snails leaving trails of snail poo on the sides of the bucket. Eventually someone cracked and freed them, much to everyone's relief."

I, for one, won't be making rolled pig's spleen, tongue and beets, or tripe and onions anytime soon. I have my own squeamish issues with what you might call filtering organs – liver, kidneys – and those I can feel doing their job in my own body: heart and tongue and, metaphysically at least, brain. Plus, I've worked in delicatessens. I've sliced cow's tongue, and not only does a cow's tongue have all the little grooves and taste buds of a human tongue, it also makes an indescribable scrunching noise as the blade goes through it – one that can only be described as the sound of a tongue going through a slicer. But the dry humor of Henderson's prose is heartening in a way that Oliveto chef Paul Bertolli's admirable, painstaking book Cooking by Hand (which is similarly obsessed with meat-curing) is not. There's a great deal of respect for life and quality ingredients in both books. But there's a quirky joy in cooking and eating in The Whole Beast that's missing from Bertolli's tract. You have to admire a man who celebrates the birth of his son by starting a batch of real balsamic vinegar (which takes decades to mature) in his honor. But it's all so earnest that Henderson's recommendations on deviled kidneys ("the perfect breakfast on your birthday with a glass of Black Velvet – half Guinness and half champagne") seems nearly wicked, and certainly dashing, by comparison.

Lest you think The Whole Beast is nothing but offal and snouts, there are also many useful recipes for simple things like homemade crackers, an all-purpose herby green sauce, chutney, trifle, even something called, in completely un-California-ish fashion, Mushy Zucchini ("what a joy to find a recipe that celebrates the well-cooked, buttery vegetable"). And, in true British mode, there are end-of-the-meal savories, including the delicious cheesy toast known as Welsh rarebit.

Welsh rarebit

A knob of unsalted butter

1 Tbs flour

1 tsp Coleman's dry English mustard powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 cup Guinness stout

A very long splash of Worcestershire sauce

1 lb mature strong cheddar cheese, grated

6 pieces toast

Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour, and let this cook until it smells biscuity but isn't browning. Add the mustard and cayenne, stir in the Guiness and Worcestershire sauce, then gently melt in the cheese. When it's all one consistency, remove from the heat, pour into a shallow container, and allow to set. Spread on toast half-inch thick and place under the broiler. Eat when a bubbling golden brown. This makes a splendid savory at the end of your meal, washed down with a glass of port, or a steadying snack.

E-mail Stephanie Rosenbaum