Nose to tail eating is making a comeback, thanks to hard times and cooks who champion slow food and sustainable nosh
Vegetarians, look away now. Offal, more fashionably known as "nose to tail eating", is making a triumphant comeback from the wastelands of out-of-print 1950s cookbooks into swanky restaurants and green kitchens alike. It is hard to understand why it ever disappeared, unless it was part of the distancing of the eaters from the eaten, and the denaturing of food that went with it. Now the combination of hard times and pioneering cooks is bringing a return to the table of delicacies like tongue, sweetbreads, liver and kidneys, and a rediscovery of the delights of slow food and sustainable nosh. Purists will argue that it would be greener not to eat meat at all but, for the committed carnivore, using every part of the beast is an economical step in the right direction. Pork scratchings or pigskin and dandelion, tripe and onions or pheasant and trotter pie, it is time to reach for the parts other cooks neglect.