Legend has it that the town of Mousehole had been suffering from awful weather one fall. The weather was so bad that the fisherman couldn’t go out to fish, and as Christmas approached, the village began to starve. In response, a fisherman named Tom Bawcock braved the stormy seas and came back with a mighty catch, enough to feed the whole village and carry them safely into winter. To celebrate, they baked a great pie with many fish. 

Each year on December 23rd, the village celebrates Tom Bawcock day with lights and a special dish called stargazy pie. In many ways, the dish is like many such baked pies like chicken pot pie or other meat pies that date back to the Neolithic period and were incredibly popular in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. In fact, stargazy pie is special not only because it contains fish, but because the sardine heads (and sometimes the tails) are pointing right up at the stars through the pie’s crust.