Stargazy pie during a very stormy winter. According to the modern festival, which is combined with the Mousehole village illuminations, the entire catch was baked into a huge stargazy pie, encompassing seven types of fish and saving the village from starvation. The story of Bawcock was popularised by Antonia Barber's children's book "The Mousehole Cat", which featured the stargazy pie. In 2007 contestant Mark Hix won the BBC's "Great British Menu" with a variant of the dish. Stargazy pie is a pastry-based fish pie which, by tradition, is filled with whole pilchards. Critically, the pilchards must retain their heads, which then poke
Battalia pie Dictionary, "Cocks-combs, Goose-gibbets, Ghizzards, Livers, and other Appurtenances of Fowls (1706)". It is not connected with Italian "battaglia", battle, but it was regularly confused with that meaning, and battalia pies were built with crenellated battlements around the edges, and sometimes as castles complete with towers. The 1658 cookery book "The Compleat Cook" by "W. M." gives an early recipe for battalia pie: In his 1660 cookery book "The Accomplisht Cook", Robert May gives a recipe "To make a Bisk or Batalia Pie", which instructs: John Nott's 1723 "The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary" gives a recipe for battalia pie with fish: