Bombay duck
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| Bombay duck | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Aulopiformes |
| Family: | Synodontidae |
| Genus: | Harpadon |
| Species: | H. nehereus |
| Binomial name | |
| Harpadon nehereus (F. Hamilton, 1822) | |
The Bombay duck or bummalo (Harpadon nehereus, Bengali: bamaloh or loytta, Gujarati: bumla, Marathi: bombil: Bombeli, Sinhala) is, despite its name, not a duck but a lizardfish. It is native to the waters between Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and Kutch in the Arabian Sea, and a small number are also found in the Bay of Bengal. Great numbers are also caught in the South China Sea. The fish is often dried and salted before it is consumed, as its meat does not have a distinctive taste of its own. After drying, the odour of the fish is extremely powerful, and it is usually transported in air-tight containers. Fresh fish are usually fried and served as a starter. In Mumbai, Konkan and the western coastal areas in India this dish is popularly known as Bombil Fry.
[edit]Etymology
The origin of the term "Bombay duck" is uncertain. One popular etymology relates to railroads. The shoals of fish around the Eurasian continent were separated when the Indian plate moved into it, dividing the species along the coasts of Eastern and Western India. When the rail links started on the Indian sub-continent, people from eastern Bengal were made aware of the great availability of the locally prized fish on India's western coasts and began importing them by the railways. Since the smell of the dried fish was overpowering, its transportation was later consigned to the mail train; the Bombay Mail (or Bombay Daak) thus reeked of the fish smell and "You smell like the Bombay Daak" was a common term in use in the days of the British Raj. In Bombay, the local English speakers then called it so, but it was eventually corrupted into "Bombay duck". Nonetheless, the Oxford English Dictionary dates "Bombay duck" to at least 1850, two years before the first railroad in Bombay was constructed, making this explanation unlikely.[1][2]
According to local Bangladeshi stories,[citation needed] the term Bombay duck was first coined by Robert Clive, after he tasted a piece during his conquest of Bengal. It is said that he associated the pungent smell with that of the newspapers and mail which would come in to the cantonments from Bombay. The term was later popularized among the British public by its appearance in Indian restaurants in the UK.
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