Folklore The pie originates from the fishing village of
Mousehole in
Cornwall. As with many parts of Cornish heritage, a legend has appeared about its origins. In this case, the pie is served to celebrate the bravery of
Tom Bawcock, a local fisherman in the 16th century. The legend explains that one winter had been particularly stormy, meaning that none of the fishing boats had been able to leave the harbour. As Christmas approached, the villagers, who relied on fish as their primary source of food, were facing starvation. On 23 December, Tom Bawcock decided to brave the storms and went out in his fishing boat. Despite the stormy weather and the difficult seas, he managed to catch enough fish to feed the entire village. The entire catch (including seven types of fish) was baked into a pie, which had the fish heads poking through to prove that there were fish inside. Ever since then, the
Tom Bawcock's Eve festival is held on 23 December in Mousehole. The celebration and memorial to the efforts of Tom Bawcock sees the villagers parading a huge stargazy pie during the evening with a procession of handmade lanterns, before eating the pie itself. An older feast, held by the fishermen towards the end of December, included a pie cooked with different fish to represent the variety of catches the men hoped to achieve in the coming year. There is a possibility that Tom Bawcock's Eve is an evolution of this festival. Since 1963, the festival has been run against the backdrop of the Mousehole village illuminations, where the entire harbour is lit up, along with many other displays. One set of lights even represents the pie itself, showing fish heads and tails protruding from a pie dish underneath six stars. There was a rumour that the entire festival was a fabrication by the landlord of The Ship Inn in the 1950s. However, festivities had been recorded by
Morton Nance, an author on the
Cornish language, in 1927 in the magazine
Old Cornwall. His description was regarding the festivities prior to 1900, though he doubted the reality of Tom Bawcock, suggesting it was in fact "Beau Coc". He also went on to claim that the origins of the festival dated back to pre-Christian times, though it is unclear at what time the stargazy pie became part of the festivities. Morton Nance went on to restore the traditional song sung on Tom Bawcock's Eve, played to the local tune "wedding March". A legend surrounding stargazy pie, along with the other unusual pies of Cornwall, is that they were the reason that the
Devil never came to Cornwall. In his book
Popular Romances of the West of England; or, The drolls, traditions, and superstitions of old Cornwall, a collection of Cornish traditions,
Robert Hunt explains that the Devil crossed the
River Tamar to
Torpoint. The chapter, entitled "The Devil's Coits, etc", reasons that the Devil discovered the Cornish would put anything in a pie and decided to leave before they took a fancy to a "devilly" pie, returning to
Devon.
Earliest accounts Printed accounts of stargazy pie do not predate the 19th century. One of the earliest print accounts of the pie, in William Sandys'
Specimens Of Cornish Provincial Dialect (1846), describes it as being made with pilchards and
leeks. It also appears in Frances Eliza Millett Notley's
Patience Caerhydon (1868–69), where the starry-gazy pie is made with
mackerel. A poem is found in
The North Georgia Gazette, and Winter Chronicle, a newspaper printed by and for the crew of
Edward Parry's Arctic survey of 1819–20: Or like that fish so long, so much renown'd, That on the Cornish coast in swarms abound, A pilchard
hight, who, quite as snug as we, Peeps through the crust, the moon and stars to see; And hence, by people, keen and sharp as razors, Have they, as we, been oft-times call'd star-gazers. ==Recipes==