One-Minute Facts: Stargazy Pie

It looks so weird even I won’t eat it

Krista, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

If you find yourself in Cornwall (the bottom left bit of Britain) then you’ll see Stargazy Pie on some restaurant menus.

This regional delicacy contains eggs, potatoes and fish (usually pilchards). But, unlike other self-contained pies, the contents of this one — the fish heads and sometimes tails — poke up out of the pie crust.

In the long-long-agos, fish was a staple diet in Cornwall. One winter, the weather was too dangerous to fish. People were starving.

One brave fisherman, Tom Bawcock, risked his life to go to sea and came back with enough fish to feed his village. Hurrah.

Cue a humungous pie that would feed everyone. Someone decided to arrange the fish so their heads stuck out of the pastry top. Maybe to show that there were fish in there. The poor pilchards looked like they were looking up to the sky, or stargazing.

Cute name; not an appetising look.

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Originally published on Medium.com (02/25)