You either understand Fergus Henderson's restaurant or you don't. I have taken people to St John, his canteen-like space a bone's throw from Smithfield market, who have loved every last crumb and then gone back for more. Yet there has always been the odd one who just doesn't get it: the spare, almost monastic room; the lack of proprietorial ego; the sight of an entire carcass being delivered through a crowded restaurant. What has always appealed to me is the ultimate luxury of eating the parts of the animal that no one else wants - the kidneys, the heart, the brain, the ears - they are stars here, rather than the usual escalope and fillet. This month Observer Food Monthly celebrates a decade of St John's success in getting us to eat marrow (both the animal and vegetable versions) and Rachel Cooke talks to Fergus Henderson about his cooking, his book and living with Parkinson's disease.
Earlier this year I was both flattered and shocked to be asked to take part in BBC's Grumpy Old Men series. That's the one where Arthur Smith, Jeremy Clarkson and AA Gill eloquently whinge about the current state of the world. I declined, not because I don't think it is good TV - I do - but because I simply don't believe that everything used to better than it is now. Kit-Kat's new packaging and my local 'traffic-calming' system aside, I am convinced that life is generally a whole lot better now than it has ever been. Try as I might, I just cannot get grumpy about things.
Others are not so sure about the present, especially on the subject of eating and in this issue we assemble a host of writers from Marguerite Patten to John Bayley and Bill Deedes who insist that what we had was better than what we have now. So I guess there's no hope of introducing them to Amsterdam's supper club, where your waitress is more than likely to be a dominatrix and your table is actually a bed. Personally I can't wait for the British outpost which is due to open in Mayfair next year and which will host hospital food evenings and equally glamorous staff. I can almost hear the Grumpy Old Men already, banging on about how dominatrices just aren't what they used to be. Come on, eat up!
· Nigel Slater is the Observer's cookery writer
