Page 133 - UpperCrust e-Magazine Third Quarter 2024

BOMBAY DUCK | UPPERCRUST FOOD

Garlic pods

Crushed garlic

Slit green chillies
So what is the story behind the name? The Bombay Duck, which is more which, under running water, you wash
It is simple actually. A distortion of sorts; commonly known in Maharashtra and these pieces carefully, making sure little
an abbreviation, even a mispronunciation, Goa as bombil, is a delicate fish, in taste bits don’t just break away and go down
may be… and texture. But strangely it smells quite the drain, quite literally! If this job is not
As it happens, in the early days, this strong. Especially when in the peak of executed thoroughly you may find you
fish caught off the Bombay coast was summer, the clever fisher folk string it are biting on gritty sand when you are
simply discarded, chucked back into the up on the beaches of North Bombay and actually eating it. Remember, the Kolis
water. People here did not have a taste around Versova, where the largest fishing – fisher folk – dry them on the beaches
for it. Perhaps it was too low down in the colony is situated, and let it dry in the for days with the sand blowing around.
hierarchy in the Kingdom of Fish! Seafood sun. Once it is bone-dry they store it So a lot of it does find its way into the
eaters may have preferred the ever sought- away for the monsoons and the surplus is crevices of the fish. Well, after washing,
after pomfrets and lobsters. sold in the market. This happens all over you have to let these cut pieces soak in
But the people of Bengal to whom fish coastal India, not just Maharashtra. salted water for about five or 10 minutes.
is manna from heaven, knew better. They Most people buy the dry bombil and You could even squeeze half a lime into
considered this translucent grey, brown, store it in airtight tin jars for two reasons; the water to reduce the smell of the
thin, long, about 6 to 10 inches, to be one that it keeps well and two that fish. Then the water has to be discarded
a delicacy. So when the railways began its extremely powerful odour does not and the fish patted dry. Most people use
operating in India, this fish was transported spread in the kitchen, or worse, the whole newspapers for this task. I don’t, because
from Bombay to Calcutta. And since it apartment! quite simply I do not like to consume
travelled in mail trains, it became known Cooking dry bombil is a tedious printing ink. Even paper napkins is not a
as Bombay Mail fish. Which got shortened affair. At least the pre-preparation is. But good solution. So I use an old but a clean
to bombail and even bombil, which is how notwithstanding all the labour involved, kitchen cloth, which I have no choice but
those living on the western coasts and it is something I love to eat. Perhaps to discard after use. Don’t want to put the
eating this fish, address in local lingo. Daak because my mother cooked it so well smelly napkin back in the drawer!
means mail in Bengali and that is how the and I did grow up eating bombils, mainly Once the bombils are as dry as can be,
Bengalis addressed it, “Bombay Daak”. during the rainy season. you have to fry them, until golden and
Which of course the Britishers of the time You have to break away its head, crisp. If the oil splatters around you learn
pronounced as, Bombay Duck. So there remove the fins and then cut them up the hard way that you did not dry the
you are! in small to medium-size pieces. After bombils sufficiently enough. However, the

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