A Bengali bounty

In Bengali mythology -- and in my mother's kitchen -- fish has always been a delicious symbol of prosperity, fertility and pleasure.

Editor's note: The following essay is excerpted from "Eating India: An Odyssey Into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices," by Chitrita Banerji and published by Bloomsbury USA.

By Chitrita Banerji

Read more: India, Fish, Life, Eat and Drink, Food and Travel

July 3, 2007 | During my years as a food writer, I have championed the cause of regional cuisine as the only authentic culinary identity. I have scoffed at the mere mention of "Indian" food or curry powder, which I came across often enough in America. Yet it is becoming more and more apparent, even from faraway America, that an inevitable fusion of influences from disparate areas is changing the nature of regional foods and eating habits in India today. And in fact, there is nothing new about this trend. The same Bengali cuisine that I wanted the world to know and appreciate, instead of focusing on the ersatz curries and tikka masalas available in Indian restaurants everywhere, has also evolved and changed over the centuries. Even a casual look at the pages of Bengali narratives going back to medieval times shows significant differences from the way we cook and eat in Bengal today. With the passage of the centuries, Bengali cuisine has eagerly taken and absorbed exotic ingredients, and repeatedly been modified by external influences. The same is true of other regional cuisines in the subcontinent.

In this context, what is authenticity? In an unstable, mobile age, when do the borders of regional uniqueness relax? Is it possible for specialties rooted in ingredient, terrain, altitude, soil, and cultural beliefs to survive in a time of rapid perpetual motion?

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Bengalis love fish. Mention Bengali food to anyone in India, and the first image it evokes is that of fish and rice. Geography is responsible for the traditions -- from a high aerial perspective you can see Bengal (and historically, this includes both the Indian state of West Bengal and the country of Bangladesh) as an enormous delta in the eastern part of India, crisscrossed by rivers and rills too numerous to count. The smaller ones join up with the major rivers like the Ganges, the Padma, and the Brahmaputra, but eventually, they all find their way into the salty waters of the Bay of Bengal. On the map, you will see the emptying out of this collective water pitcher identified as the Mouths of the Ganges.

Fly lower down, and you see the land that makes the delta -- alluvial soil, renewed every year with the silt deposited by flooding rivers, precious as gold to the farmer. The presence of the rivers and the lakes and the rich coastal waters bordered by the mangrove forests of the Sunderbans, have automatically made freshwater fish a major part of the Bengali diet. Moreover, fish here, as in many parts of China, is not merely food. As a symbol of prosperity and fertility, it touches many aspects of ceremonial and ritual life.

In our extended family, my mother's kitchen was famed as a renewable source of gastronomic delight. And the one thing she loved above all was fish, no matter what its size, texture, or density of flesh and bone. As a picky and temperamental child, I didn't share her enthusiasm. Until I was old enough to go to college, when an expansion of my world helped develop my palate, there were only a few kinds of fish that I tolerated. The rest, however much they were recommended by mother and grandmother as "brain food," were anathema, particularly the tiny, excessively bony creatures that were either crisply fried or made into fiery, red-hot concoctions with julienned potatoes.

As I grew into my teens, what particularly aggrieved me was being dragged to the fish market by my mother, despite vigorous protests. She was determined that I should grow up with some sense of where my food came from. I hated the noise, the crowds, and the slippery, wet surface of the aisles bordered with gutters where the fishmongers, sitting on high slabs of concrete, threw out fish offal and dirty water with careless abandon even as they loudly touted their goods. Sometimes, my mother bought a fish head to cook with roasted moong dal -- a specialty that makes Bengali fish lovers salivate, while outsiders grow queasy. Choosing a majestic carp, she would command the fishmonger to cut off the head and then portion it. With fascination bordering on horror, I watched as the man picked up the huge fish in both hands and ran it with one swift, yet powerful movement against the blade of the bonti, a Bengali cutting instrument whose curving blade rises vertically out of a thick wooden wedge placed on the floor. As he triumphantly held up the head with its exposed dark red gills, it seemed more alive than the whole fish. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and held my breath lest some fishy spirit haunt me. Returning home from the market, I scrubbed my face, hands and arms with soap and water, and rubbed down my dress with wet hands, hoping to delete the odor of fish but uneasily aware of its lingering potency.

Arriving in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a graduate student, I discovered that nothing symbolized the contrariness of an outsider's life better than one's reaction to fish. In New England, a long maritime history has created an eating universe ruled by cod, halibut, tuna, salmon, bluefish, swordfish and other inhabitants of the great Atlantic, so much so, that the word "fish" is almost synonymous with seafood. But in those early days after arrival, I was ignorant enough to repeatedly fall into the trap unwittingly set by generous American hosts.

"Do you like fish?" they would ask as they took me out to dinner.

"Oh, yes," I would respond with Bengali enthusiasm, having tired of the large pieces of chicken covered with fatty skin, the hamburgers, and the recalcitrant cuts of meat labeled "London broil" that were served in the dormitory cafeterias of that time.

And so they took me to well-known "fish" restaurants. Each time, I ordered an item with a new name, and each time, I encountered the strong, briny flavor guaranteed to put off a person used to eating freshwater fish. In Bengal, where the rivers rule the land, the ocean is rarely explored as a source of fish. In fact, marine fish are traditionally considered inferior to fish harvested from lakes and rivers and are consequently much cheaper. All my favorite varieties were freshwater ones. Confronted by the disconcerting flavor of the fish served to me in America, I assumed at first that what I didn't like was the blandness of the preparation, the total lack of spices. If only the Puritan palate could embrace the tangy seasonings of my native land, what a difference it would make, I reflected as I picked at my portion. Since I didn't know how to cook, this was a natural mistake. Gradually, however, I figured out that this was a cultural, not a culinary divide: it was the seafood itself that tasted so foreign to me. And despite the many years spent here, I have not been able to cross it. The offerings of the sea, with a couple of exceptions, do not quicken desire in me. It is, however, a Bengali limitation, not an Indian one. The food of India's coastal states, like Goa, Kerala, and Maharashtra on the west, and Orissa on the east, includes many kinds of seafood transformed by intensely flavorful spices.

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