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Just add heat and sea air how to enjoy fresh pilchards at their very best
This weekend sees the annual Newquay fish festival take place on the town's historic harbour front. So what better time to cook what must surely be the town's signature fish dish? That's grilled or, as they say in "proper" Cornish, scrowled pilchards. Back in the day, before tourism and surfing were invented, Newquay's economy depended on the annual arrival of pilchards by the thousand to its shores every September. To this day, the town's emblem is two of these flavourful silver fish.

1. September sizzler: Chef Sanjay Kumar cooks pilchards al fresco beside Newquay's iconic Huer's Hut in celebration of this weekend's fish festival

Chef Sanjay Kumar, chairman of Slow Food Cornwall, is a huge pilchard fan. We meet on the clifftops beside Newquay's medieval Huer's Hut, once a key part of the town's fishing industry.

Now Grade II* listed, a watchman would sit in the tiny building on September days, ready to raise a "hue" and cry if he saw a shoal approaching. "It's the perfect spot for a pilchard picnic," says Sanjay, setting up his barbecue in late summer sunshine. Sanjay is giving a chef demonstration on pilchards at the fish festival tomorrow. "Quickly grilled, pilchards are authentically Cornish fast food," he says. A few moments more and he has produced a crisp, succulent and moreish grilled pilchard and tomato salsa sandwich. So what, exactly, are pilchards? "It's quite simple, they are just older, bigger sardines and have all the flavours of that much-loved fish," says Sanjay. If you're thinking of cooking fresh Cornish pilchards yourself, you can still buy them, even though the days of Cornwall exporting 120 million of the fish a year (as recorded in 1847) are long since over. "Pilchards are still landed in Cornwall, mostly at Newlyn near Penzance these days," says Sanjay, head chef at Carlyon Bay's Cliff Head Hotel. "In fact, I heard 60 tonnes of pilchards were landed at Newlyn the other weekend which is good news as they are a wonderful fish to cook." A hundred years and more ago, the pilchard shoals would come to the shallow waters of Cornwall every autumn, followed soon afterwards by herring, then hake as the winter drew on. Often huge shoals of pilchard would come so close to shore that villagers could scoop them up in knee-deep water. A huge industry developed from catching and exporting pilchards in the 18th and 19th centuries. But, sadly, in the early 1900s the shoals stopped coming to the Cornish coast as they once did, thanks to overfishing and changes in sea currents. Sanjay cooks pilchards swiftly, over a charcoal grill. He says they are best with a sharp, acidic accompaniment to offset their innate oiliness. "Lemon, capers or tomatoes are classic flavour pairings with pilchards. They all work really well together." Yes, they are bony and you can remove the bones if you've time for a somewhat fiddly job, Sanjay says. "If I'm cooking them in the restaurant, I de-bone them completely. If I'm eating them myself, I cook them, bones and all, like whitebait. The bones are so tiny, they melt as the fish cooks." A relaxed approach to de-boning pilchards has the added advantage of boosting the calcium content of the fish, which certainly deserves to be recognised as a superfood.

Like all oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and herring, the pilchard is high in Omega 3 fatty acids, hugely beneficial for the circulatory system, joints, eyes, skin and hair. Government guidelines recommend we eat two portions a week of oily fish. "At this time of year, there's good reason to make at least one of them the good old Cornish pilchard," says Sanjay. Quite apart from their fresh, savoury flavour and health benefits, pilchards are a tangible link to our region's seafaring past. Back in the day, a "huer" would sit in huts on clifftops, ready to blow a horn or shout, "Hevva! Hevva!" (loose translation "Wow, look at all the fish over there") and the pilchard was crucial to Cornwall's prosperity. "Money, meat and light, all in one night" was the saying, as pilchards could be sold for cash, eaten for food ("meat") and their oil used for lamps. Back then, pilchards were preserved in salt by packing them into big wooden barrels. Once cured, they were transported far and wide, particularly to Italy, whose people adored them. These days, look out for tins of Cornish pilchards, as some of the current Newlyn catch is canned and sold by local firm The Pilchard Works at Waitrose and many local stockists. "Canning is great way of preserving Cornish pilchards and their nutrient value is still very high," says Sanjay. But if you feel like doing a little barbecuing this weekend, why not seek out some fresh pilchards from your fishmonger? Here's Sanjay's recipe to get the best out of this historic little fish. "Pilchards have a robust taste which means they can stand up to strong flavours," he says. "I've gone for the classic pairing of pilchard with tomato but with a slight curry twist, a nod to my childhood in Bengal." And this is certainly the weekend to celebrate the Westcountry fish catch. As well as Newquay's Fish Festival today and tomorrow, both St Mawes near Falmouth and Brixham in South Devon also have fun-filled fish festivals today. Happy scrowling!