Going the whole hog

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the splendid Clerkenwell restaurant St John, and also the republication of chef Fergus Henderson's essential cooking guide to Nose to Tail Eating - A Kind of British Cooking (Bloomsbury £16.99). The title is illustrated by a pig marked off into its various cuts; absolutely nothing going to waste.

I've sung the praises of St John often enough in these pages but, whereas most restaurants mutate or deteriorate over 10 years, the meal I had at St John last week, of langoustines with mayonnaise followed by roast grouse with bread sauce and buttered Savoy cabbage, was unassailable - and also most chivalrously served.

I could have ordered a bowl of crispy pig's skin in the bar. Half a braised pig's head had been offered as a special for the whole table but my companions chickened out, or rather they went for the roast Middlewhite pork with prunes.

Fergus Henderson and also Ashley Hancill, chef of THE PIG'S EAR in Chelsea, might be interested in the naturalist Lyall Watson's recently published work, The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs (Profile Books £16.99).

Watson's contention is that we will never know the true potential of pigs because it lies in the hands (or trotters) of the animals themselves; pigs remain masters of their own destiny. His theory, at this moment in political time, could give new insight to a reading of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Until our porcine friends take over, you can eat pan-fried pig's trotter with Puy lentils and deep-fried onion rings at the recently opened first-floor restaurant of The Pig's Ear, a pub which has been rather beautifully re-modelled by, among others, Ollie Daniaud, who co-owns The Westbourne, and Jamie Prudom, who formerly ran Catch.

Chef Hancill has worked with Marco Pierre White and Gary Rhodes and was for a while head chef at Alastair Little, a suitable pedigree for his robust and roistering menu.

I started with the trotter which had been brined, de-boned and made into a breadcrumbed patty, in other words denatured. It was pig's trotter for Findus fans.

Caramelised smoked eel with pomme fondant (very MPW), wilted spinach and beetroot relish had been kippered by the caramelising process. Serving smoked eel warm isn't a good idea, was the judgment. However, Norfolk cauliflower soup with almond oil was much liked. Little clusters of cauliflower disported themselves in the froth of the broth.

The small dining-room, panelled in dark wood and decorated in part by a portrait of a pig Toulouse-Lautrec might have painted, looks into the restaurant kitchen.