The ideas come from classic Italian cooking, or any European culture, for that matter. As far as something like the offal menu, Europeans would definitely not throw anything away, and the use of the head or the liver or the kidneys is part of their quotidian experience.
Quotes about offal (3 Quotes)
I have often told you that I am that little fish who swims about under a shark and, I believe, lives indelicately on its offal. Anyway, that is the way I am. Life moves over me in a vast black shadow and I swallow whatever it drops with relish, having learned in a very hard school that one cannot be both a parasite and enjoy self-nourishment without moving in worlds too fantastic for even my disordered imagination to people with meaning.
As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal.