#PIE WITH FISH HEADS STICKING OUT FULL#

It’s the Tom Bawcock story that really stole the heart of the Cornish people, though. The truth, like pretty much every truth in history, is probably somewhere in the middle.

Another legend is that villagers in Cornwall simply baked everything into pie, and that’s what protected the region from the Devil because he was terrified it would happen to him. Stargazy pie is a classic Cornish dish of pilchards with eggs and potatoes covered in a pastry. One alternative, yet wildly less entertaining, story is that the local fishermen gave thanks each Christmas and looked forward to the following year by baking a huge pie. Look up in the sky with fish heads sticking out from a pie. This being a legend, there are a couple of competing theories as to how December 23 became fish head pie day in Mousehole. Ever since that day, Mousehole celebrates Tom Bawcock’s Eve on December 23 with Stargazy pie. The pie itself is filled with fish and a thick. The fish heads and tails were arranged to poke out of the top of the pie to prove that there was indeed fish in it. This unusual fish pie has the heads of the fish stick through the piecrust, and are said to be star-gazing. Mousehole welcomed him back as a savior and baked his entire catch into a massive fish pie.

#PIE WITH FISH HEADS STICKING OUT FULL#

He caught a full boatload of seven types of fish before heading back home to safety. The villagers noticed his boat was gone, and they lit lanterns and candles in the windows to guide him back to safety. He took his boat out and sailed through narrow Mousehole Harbour to face the stormy seas beyond the walls. An old fisherman named Tom Bawcock decided to do something about it. As food became increasingly scarce, it was clear that the villagers would starve by Christmas. That was the case one December in the 16th century.Īccording to legend, Mousehole faced a particularly stormy December one year. Each storm season was a threat to the entire region as people in the village would starve without the fresh catch. In the past, when storms raged around the coast of Cornwall, fishermen couldn’t make it out past the harbor to fish.

Pie with fish heads sticking out