My Fish Memoir
My memories of fish is associated more with the markets which I visited as an urban-bred 90s child than with the kitchen it was made in
by Anamika Dutt
There would be a spat. As the blood flowed onto the ‘boonti’ and the lifeless head dropped on the side while the fishmonger cut the fresh fish and packaged it for my grandfather. It was the familiar sound within the stench-ridden markets which would always have the same culture no matter where I would go. The elation of the blood oozing out, a macabre celebration to indicate the freshness of the fish. The other constant within this elation was my maternal grandfather with his jute bag and I in a frock, mostly mesmerised by the spread the market had to offer. The fish markets of Delhi and Kolkata are a part of that memory.
The market(s) would offer the freshest catch, majorly river fish in the Bengali dominated parts of Delhi and in Kolkata. My grandfather who belonged originally to Dhaka, would narrate his childhood stories of catching fish near his home and sharing a few of the East Bengal fish recipes with his regular fishmonger in either of the cities. I, on the other hand, would be pointing towards the fish and asking the names of the various types showcased for the ardent customer. The fishmongers, the ‘kakus’ as I would call them, humoured me by telling me the names of the fish and asking me which one I would like to serve to my guests during my wedding. In those days, we would carry back the packed fish in that jute bag, I looking at the bag while my grandfather swung it around. It would then be taken to my grandmother who would listen to the request of my grandfather and me for the fish curry we felt like eating that day. More often than not I would be the one getting the preference to style of fish curry being made in the kitchen that day.
Fish with its generic association with Bengalis imprinted its culture in my mind mostly through these trips to the fish markets with my grandfather. At the age of five when I was taught to separate a good fish from a bad one — by looking at the gills, which had to be deep maroon, and by pushing my fingers on the flesh which should ideally bounce back — made me a little excited. More than 20 years later I still manage to get the freshest of the ‘catch’ due to the eye my grandfather honed for more than a decade. My memories of fish is associated more with the markets which I visited as an urban-bred 90s child than with the kitchen it was made in at home.
Years later, when I moved out of my house in 2010 for my masters degree to Mumbai, one of the first thing on my agenda was to find the nearest fish market. A few insistent questions and bewildered frowns later, I managed to find the Govandi fish market, I still remember being disappointed because the familiar river fish I had known growing up with were nowhere to be seen. It took me almost eight years and about four coastal cities (where I have lived) to identify most fishes (if not all). The small corner of the Govandi fish market, to the bigger Colaba market and the huge Sasoon docks — the docks which host the first of the caught fish in Mumbai— I have come a long way in my journey, as a fish-eater.
After my first time in Mumbai for about a year, small office trips to Kerala brought me face to face with kinds of fish I had not even seen in Mumbai. I still remember walking around Thrissur, at noon when the stomach grumbled, I went into one of the small eateries near the round city park, it opened up to this busy looking middle-aged man who could not understand a word of Hindi, so I gestured to him with my hands like a kindergarten kid that I wanted to eat some fish; the man smiled and sent me up to the family room where a rice plate was served to me with an assortment of vegetables and karimeen curry. It was only years after eating this particular karimeen that I realised its actual value in the Malayalee kitchen; I think it has the same importance the Ilish is given at my home during celebrations.
Another such instance was of my rural stint in Sangli, the turmeric city of Maharashtra. Sangli, having no coast of its own, imports all its fresh catch from Ratnagiri which comes in every day. One of my colleagues who was a local took me to the expansive market. For the first time in my life, I saw blue-shelled crabs in a market; earlier, I had only seen them in expensive restaurants in Mumbai who occupy the niche part of the restaurant food chains. These blue-shelled crabs which to my surprise had the best sweet meat in it and made the best ingredient in a sea food broth. The broth became my signature dish, in those few months and made for the best type of comfort food. The relationship that I built with my fishmonger in Sangli, still continues as my recent trip to the city made me go there not as a customer but to meet the man who would call me every week on a Monday for a year to tell me that the fresh crabs have arrived, post which I would hurry back from office on those days to buy them.
These are a few instances that I remember from this long journey with fish and how different it has become from when I was that five-year-old accompanying my grandfather to the fish market. All these experiences have been taken into my kitchen, the space which was once just a stage where my grandmother and mother would cook while I sat in the corner. That space now has become my playground where I showcase how fish as an identity has changed for me. That fish is no longer the Bengali tradition which my grandmother still boasts about in her 70s, it is part of these stories of my life and my interactions with the various communities who have been part of my growing up as an adult. Fish market in my memory has become the space where my various identities intersect: a Delhi-bred Bengali girl becomes an adult traveller around the various parts of the country etching down ingredients, techniques and twists that intensifies and makes anew the flavours of the fish curry.
Anamika Dutt believes that the comfort found through food is the highest form of love. Her love story with food started when her mother gave birth to her after a dinner of lip smacking butter chicken! Her day job is of a feminist NGO practitioner, which often requires her to travel extensively, giving her an opportunity to bite into different kinds of food and indulge in myriad food stories. She publishes the blog, AnaTummy of Food, where she weaves nostalgia with her style of cooking and creating recipes.