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Updated: June 10, 2025
Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England, betook himself to the United States in the last year of the last century. He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-rate fisherman; and his family had made a rule as most respectable families at that time did to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more than twice in one season.
Little dinner, however, was eaten that day at the cottage, notwithstanding the fact that Jane Pengelly, as a reward for my industry in making up and remoulding her asparagus bed, had concocted a favourite Cornish dish for our repast, y'clept a "Mevagissey pie" a savoury compound consisting of alternate slices of mutton and layers of apples and onions cut into pieces, and symmetrically arranged, the whole being subsequently covered with a crust, pie-fashion, and then baked in the oven until well browned; when, although the admixture seems somewhat queer to those unused to a Cornish cuisine, the result is not by any means to be despised; rather is it uncommonly jolly!
Certainly a most enlightened man for his time, and if we could only add that he recommended the milk to be sour we should have brought his modernity to the highest point. Mevagissey, about six miles south-west of St. Austell, was once one of the most flourishing fishing-ports on the Cornish coast, and though it has not quite maintained its relative position, it is not done with yet.
Well, this Job was agent for a company of adventurers called the "Pride o' the West," and had ordered a new lugger to be built for them down at Mevagissey. She was lying on the ways, ready to launch, and Mr. Job proposed to Cap'n Jacka to sail over to Mevagissey and have a look at her. Cap'n Jacka was pleased as Punch, of course.
The first began by drawling out, “How you do dis maurning. Were I to make this assertion at Mevagissey I fear I should stand but little chance of being invited to dine off star gazy pie ; but for fear my reader should be from that neighbourhood, I beg him to understand that I do not think them better, but, in my individual opinion, as good.
But there are still a good many pilchards taken off Mevagissey, and these are largely cured here many under their own name, but a large number find their way to the factory of the Cornish Sardine Company established in the town. It has often been debated whether pilchards and sardines are one and the same; Mr. Aflalo says they are identical.
But within ten minutes it is finished: he shivers, his false strength changing to paltriness, the waves washing now over his head; and now he is drowsing...drowning... He continued, however, to swim after his conscious efforts ceased: for his body was found next morning on a strip of Cornish sand between Gorran and Mevagissey, washed by every sheet of surf.
In Mevagissey Church there is a curious old font, probably Norman in date as it is in appearance. The tower of this church was removed for some reason, perhaps because it was out of repair; and it was slyly reported in the neighbourhood that the townsfolk had sold their bells to pay for the removal of their tower. Cornish parishes are fond of these jibes against each other.
So it was that the Mevagissey pie, toothsome as it was, went almost untasted away, Jane removing the remains presently to the larder that was, as she said, but I could not help noticing that she did not return afterwards to clear away the dinner things and make matters tidy in the kitchen, as was her regular custom when we had finished meals.
There was the cholera also, which was a very terrible reality at Mevagissey in 1849, and which did its good work as well as its evil, by causing the place to be thoroughly cleansed. Mewan being a Welsh saint, and St. Issey probably an Irishman.
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