When I was a little girl growing up in

Bombay, June was the month I looked

forward to the most. It was the month
when the charred, inky monsoon clouds,
clipped with streaks of lightning, brushed
away the fetid summer heat. It was when
I went back to school with my new books,
wrapped carefully in crackling-new brown
paper. Best of all, June was also the
month for the Bombay duck to grace the
kitchens of Parsi homes such as mine.
This delicious monsoon specialty, which
is most plentiful and easiest to catch
during the rains, was how I marked the
time. It pinned the season into place.

But who are the Parsis? And what is a

Bombay duck?

Parsis are Zoroastrian immigrants from

Iran who have called India home since
the 8th Century AD, but it was under
colonial rule in Bombay in the 19th
Century that they truly flourished: Parsi
entrepreneurs leveraged their aptitude
for Western education and sensibilities,
as influenced by the British, to obtain
coveted positions in Indian industry and
politics. They became titans of trade and
commerce, and used their enormous
influence to endow schools, colleges and
hospitals for the poor.

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Later, in the 19th Century, a second

swell of Zoroastrians blew into Bombay.
These canny entrepreneurs were the
Iranis, who started the iconic Irani
cafes that have traditionally served food
to people of all castes, religions and
genders.

Like India itself, Parsi cuisine has

absorbed the influences of a host of
cultures who have made their mark on
the subcontinent – the plinth possibly lies
 in pre-Islamic Iran, but it also draws from
the Indian regions of Gujarat, Goa and
the Konkan Coast, as well as Britain and
even the Netherlands. Geographies and
histories peel away with every mouthful
of food.

Thanks to Parsi settlements that rimmed

the Indian coast, specifically in the state
of Gujarat, fish became tightly yoked to
Parsi culture. We
eat chhamno (pomfret), boi (a sort of
mullet), kolmi (prawn), levti (mud
hopper), bhing (shad), rawas (a kind of
Indian salmon) and bangra (mackerel),
among others. And then there's the
Bombay duck.
Fiendishly ugly, it is gelatinous and pink-skinned with a
gaping maw

The Bombay duck is actually a fish native

to the waters in and around Mumbai.
Fiendishly ugly, it is gelatinous and pink-
skinned with a gaping maw. Moreover,
the root of its curious name is a great
mystery.
The word could have been a colonisation
of the local Marathi name for the
fish, bombil, used by the Maharashtrians
that the British couldn't twirl their tongues
around. Or perhaps the name is an
Anglicism born from the
Marathi bazaar cry, “bomiltak” (loosely:
"here is bombil"). But the most famous
explanation is the one set out by Indian-
born, British-Parsi writer, Farrukh
Dhondy, in his book Bombay Duck. He
believes that the name came from the
British mail trains that huffed odoriferous
orders of dried fish from the city to the
interior of India. These wagonloads
became known as “Bombay Dak”. (The
word dak means “mail”.)

Love for this fish runs deep within the

diverse cultures of the city. One of
Mumbai's earliest residents, Koli
fishermen, have been salting and sun-
scorching the fish by pegging them up on
large racks fashioned from bamboo stilts
called valandis for hundreds of years.
The drying fish gave off a stench so
strong that British colonisers believed
that it was harmful to their health,
although they later grew to love them.
These wizened dried fish, eaten during
the monsoon, offer bursts of
concentrated, nearly raucous
savouriness when rehydrated and
cooked into curries or dry-fried as an
accompaniment to dal and rice. Koli
fishermen eat it fresh too, sheathed in
fiery Koli masala, or semi-dried
(bambooke bombil) and cooked into a
spirited coconut gravy.

Most seafood-loving communities of

India’s western Konkan Coast, such as
the East Indians and Maharashtrians,
also find Bombay duck intrinsic to their
cuisine. The East Indians grind it into a
vinegary chutney or roast and fry it,
sometimes stuffing it with a bellyful of tiny
prawns. Some Maharashtrian
communities fry it into a bhaji (fritter)
while others stir fresh greens into the
dried version or cook it with an onion
tamarind masala.
 Clearly, Bombay duck doesn’t just belong
to Parsis, but it does feel almost totemic
to our community. It makes its way onto
our plates and into our songs, our books
and even our names: Boomla (the Parsi
word for Bombay duck) is a fairly
common Parsi surname.

My father’s memories of growing up in

the small Gujarati town of Bilimora, about
215km north from Mumbai, are knotted to
my grandmother smoking dried fingers of
Bombay duck over a charcoal fire until
crisp enough to crumble into shards.
These are the roasted, dried Bombay
duck of my dreams – sawed back and
forth over kitchen flames, their smoky
flavour can’t be recreated on my Mumbai
kitchen stove.
Bombay duck doesn’t just belong to Parsis, but it does feel
almost totemic to our community

Luckily, though, there are other ways to

salve my craving for dried Bombay duck,
such as Tarapori patio. Just a scallop's
worth of this spicy Bombay duck pickle
enlivens a bland yellow dal and rice.
Dried Bombay duck is also dunked into a
stew called Tari ma Sukka Boomla that
hums with the rasp of toddy (an alcoholic
drink drawn from the sap of a palm tree),
jaggery (a fudge-like unrefined
sweetener), vinegar and dried red
chillies.

Fresh Bombay duck is also made into a

gravied patio (pickle),