It’s universally agreed that British cuisine isn’t controversial, but the Stargazy pie, an oven-baked pie with whole sardines heads, makes any toast and beans seem like the most sensible meal on the planet.
Even by English standards, Stargazy Pie is a dish that pushes some gastronomic boundaries. Firstly, it is not easy to find the pie for sale in pubs and restaurants in the capital, London, because despite being known nationally, many Britons refrain from trying the delicacy.
Pie land
But there is one city in the UK where Stargazy Pie is the dish most revered by the locals.
In Cornwall, 450 kilometers from London, the Stargazy Pie tradition is intertwined with the history of the county itself. The controversy was in this small seaside fishing town in the southwest of England Sardine pie invented it. There, the dish is ubiquitous in almost all gastronomic establishments, which even tend to hand out slices of Stargazy Pie for free on Christmas Eve.
Despite the odd appearance, the basic ingredients for Stargazy Pie are not out of the ordinary, but it is the combination of these different foods in the same recipe that makes the pie not to everyone’s taste.
The filling for the Stargazy pie is a thick white cream made with butter, onions and shallots. Cured meat Diced, white wine, fish stock, salt, black pepper and parsley. After everything is cooked add the wheat flour, cream and grated boiled egg.
Pie dough is traditional, the kind that must be opened with a rolling pin. Top with white cream and fish fillets that are already clean, usually sardines. The highlight of the recipe is the fish heads and the sauces that tear the layer of dough that sits on top of the pie.
The rule is that the eyes of the sardines always face the sky and that the fish appears to be jumping out of the pan.
Hero fish
The exact time when Stargazy Pie was invented is not known with certainty, but an oral tradition passed down for generations in Cornwall is that fish pie saved this part of the UK from starvation.
According to this legend that every Cornish man has on the tip of his tongue, centuries ago, the small harbor town of Mowshall would have been cut off from the rest of the UK after an unprecedented blizzard.
With no food available, hunger plagued the village, until a fisherman named Tom Pocock launched his boat into the sea, returning with enough fish to feed the entire village. Legend has it that Tom Bawcock himself had the idea to serve fish in a pie, and thus invented Stargazy Pie, which has become a favorite winter dish among locals.
Even today, the legend of Tom Pocock is still alive as ever in this part of the UK. Every year on December 23rd, the city holds a festival honoring the heroic deeds of the fisherman who is said to have invented Stargazy Pie.
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