Stargazy pie through the pastry top, appearing to gaze at the stars. The position of the fish allows the oil that is released during cooking to drain into the pie, adding a fuller flavour and ensuring the pie is moist. The celebrity chef Rick Stein suggested also poking the pilchards' tails through the pie crust to give the effect of leaping through water. In spite of the fact that the British Food Trust describes the dish as being fun as well as amusing to children, it has been listed in "Yuck! Disgusting things people eat", a lifestyle feature by the "New York
Pie and mash eels were one of the few forms of fish that could survive in the heavily polluted River Thames and London's other rivers at that time. Supply was plentiful through the late 1800s, particularly from the Dutch fishing boats landing catches at Billingsgate Fish Market. Since 2010, as revealed in a joint study by the Zoological Society of London and the Environment Agency, the number of eels captured in research traps in the River Thames fell from 1,500 in 2005 to 50 in 2010, meaning most eels used in pie and mash shops are now from the Netherlands and Northern Ireland.