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By Root 775 0

that carries the slightest, most infinitesimal possibility of risk – or the slightest potential for pleasure. There is talk of banning unaged cheese, stock bones, soft-boiled or raw eggs. In the States, legislation has been suggested, mandating a written warning when a customer requests eggs over easy or a Caesar salad. (‘Warning! Fork – if placed into eye – may cause injury!’) A woman in the States won a lawsuit, claiming her coffee was too hot, scalding her as she stomped on the accelerator exiting the McDonald’s parking lot. (‘Warning! Deep-fried Mars bar – if stuffed down pants – may cause genital scarring!’) The result of this unrestrained fear mongering, this mad rush to legislate new extremes of shrink-wrapped germ-free safety? Much like it was after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle scared the hell out of early-twentieth-century meat eaters – the absorption of small independents into giant factory farms and slaughter domes. Try and eat an American chicken and you will see what looms: bloodless, flavorless, colorless, and riddled with salmonella – a by-product of letting the little guys go under and the big conglomerates run things their way.

You have only to visit an English pub in, say, Bristol or Birmingham – once-proud strongholds of British culinary tradition at its simplest and most unvarnished – to see that the enemy has reached the gates and is pounding on the door. A vegetarian menu! Right there – next to the steak and kidney pie and the bangers and mash! Worse – far worse – is when you look over at the bar and see Brits, brewers of some of the finest alcoholic beverages in the world, gorgeous beers, ales, and bitters, once served in that most noble of drinking vessels – the pint glass – sucking Budweisers from long-necked bottles.

It’s war. On one side, a growing army of hugely talented young British, Scottish, Irish, and Australian chefs, rediscovering their own enviable indigenous resources and marrying them with either new and brash concepts or old and neglected classics. On the other? A soul-destroying tsunami of bad, fake reproductions of what was already bad, fake New York ‘Mexican’ food. Gluey, horrible nachos, microwaved never-fried ‘refried’ beans, fabric softener margaritas. Limp, soggy, watery, and thoroughly dickless ‘enchiladas’ and catsupy salsas. Clueless ‘Pan-Asian’ watering holes where every callow youth with a can of coconut milk and some curry powder thinks he’s Ho Chi Minh. (Forget it. Ho could cook.) Sushi is almost nowhere to be found – in spite of the fact that the seafood in the UK is magnificent. You get more heart, soul, and flavor at an East End pie shop than at any of the rotten, fake, dumbed-down ‘Italian,’ ‘Japanese fusion,’ or theme purgatories. Even the cod – the basic ingredient of fish and chips – is disappearing. (I raised that subject with a Portuguese cod importer. ‘The damned seals eat them,’ was his answer. ‘Kill more seals,’ he suggested.)

Fortunately, Fergus and other like-minded souls are on the front lines, and they’re unlikely to abandon their positions. Sitting at St. John, I ordered what I think is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth: Fergus’s roasted bone marrow with parsley and caper salad, croutons, and sea salt.

Oh God, is it good. How something so simple can be so . . . so . . . absolutely luxurious. A few Flintstone-sized lengths of veal shank, a lightly dressed salad . . . Lord . . . to tunnel into those bones, smear that soft gray-pink-and-white marrow onto a slab of toasted bread, sprinkle with some sel gris . . . take a bite . . . Angels sing, celestial trumpets . . . six generations of one’s ancestors smile down from heaven. It’s butter from God.

A few years ago, the neighborhood around St. John was about as fashionable as a fistula. Now, there are faces and bodies one usually associates with tofu snacks and soy milk smoothies, skinny, well-dressed women, mussing their lipstick as they enthusiastically gnaw bones, ooh and aah over the glories of pork belly, pig’s trotter, tripe – all that lovingly cooked offal. It’s where the people who truly