The Backbone OF British Cooking

Mention the titans of British cooking and most people will come up with Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey. Yet there are two other, lesser known forces , Margot and Fergus Henderson. They brought back good British food to an island and a nation torn by outer influences and culinary boredom.

Julia Moskin wrote about this fascinating couple in today's New York Times Food section. The Hendersons are not really known  being not as famous as their fellow Brit chefs yet they are important. They brought English cooking back to England. This is the food that Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth relished. It is not the food such as toad in thole and mushy peas that people mock. It is simple and elegant, renditions of a pre-Industrial Revolution country.It is taking cuts from whole pigs and dishes rich with cabbage.Their restaurant , St John is evident of that. The menu reflects the best of English cooking and baking. The famed eatery offers saddle of hare along with braised tripe and Welsh rarebit. Desserts are simple , reflecting the heart of the Anglo-Saxon kitchen, with such sweets as treacle tart and Eccles cake , the current filled pastries.There are also other classics such as turnips and beets along with all sorts of brassica, from cabbage salads to butter braised Brussels sprouts.One of their protegees, John Lowe of Lyle's uses  such classic British ingredients as Alexanders a local sort of parsley and bereneal, an ancient grain from Scotland. There is also Sticjhelton a kind of Stilton blue cheese made with unpasteurized milk.

Yet there are problems thanks to Brexit and Mr. Henderson's Parkinson's disease. There are going to be new laws regarding what can be brought back into the country. Kitty Travers, their artisinal ice cream maker and fiercely loyal friend will be affected by this. She travels to Italy to pick Amalfi lemons and France for ripe apricots for her small batch ice creams. Now there are thornier issues about what stays in the United Kingdom and what can be brought in. The Hendersons may use more British raised plants and meats along with indigenous plants that were used in cooking centuries ago. Yet this won't stop them from trying other cuisines. The current chef at St John Bread and Wine is Farokh Talati, the son of Parsi immigrants from India and hosts a pop up Parsi supper club once a month.Mr. Henderson also had to step back from all his restaurants. He can't work fast enough anymore to deal with the demands of a busy restaurant. It is Margot who took over although his presence is clearly felt. They still have good fistful of restaurants which also includes the popular Black Axe Mangal a take on the British love of kebob shops (mangal is named for the late night kebob shops that dot London).

Margot and Fergus Henderson are the quiet backbone of modern British cooking. They update classic ingredients and make classic recipes exciting again. They are the faces of English cooking today.