I Have a Romantic Thing About Pilchards

Pilchards are big, oily sardines. Their oil once lit the lamps of Victorian London. And, packs of salted pilchards kept the people of Cornwall alive through harsh winters in an age when putting food on the table to simply survive was a challenge. Here’s a peek at a secret harbor my guide, Tim Uff, shared with me. Don’t tell anyone, but it’s Penberth Cove (just a mile from the famous theater in the rock, Minack Theatre). It’s a rugged bit of Cornwall (sorry about the wind noise in this clip). From here you can imagine a hilltop watchman spotting a school of pilchards (“where the water turned purple”) and blowing his trumpet. All the fishermen would jump into their boats and charge out to encircle the fish with their nets. A good catch would have fisherwomen trudging from village to village with bushels of salted pilchards for sale on their backs, and the people of Cornwall would be kept in protein through the winter.

Comments

4 Replies to “I Have a Romantic Thing About Pilchards”

  1. Interesting piece of video journalism. This cove looks more like a mail slot than a backdoor! How would tourists even fit here? I think I’ve seen your travel show where you visit a museum where a man demonstrates salting and packing and pressing fish…for winter protein and for lamp oil as you tell us here.

  2. I was wondering about Pilchards…because I’ve been watching Poldark (which takes place in Cornwall) on PBS and the women were standing on the cliffs looking for them so they could live through the winter.

    I’d love to visit Cornwall…it evokes images of Daphne du Maurier’s books and the 1940s movie “The Uninvited” with Ray Milland.

  3. Lovin’ hearing about Cornwall and all it has to offer.
    However, sometimes it is difficult to hear you due to the wind noise in the microphone Is there a setting on your camera to avoid that?

  4. This was well dramatized in the Poldark series that just wrapped up on PBS in the US. That show has the most beautiful scenery of the Cornish coast. Part of it was filmed at St. Just, one town over from my Cornish ancestors’ home in Zennor on the western coast.

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