Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast by Samanth Subramanian

Author:Samanth Subramanian
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780143064473
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Published: 2010-11-15T14:36:02.459000+00:00

I had come to Mangalore expecting to fall completely in love with its fish curry, but I lusted instead, for much of my time there, after another dish, before I rediscovered my original love on the very morning of my departure. I had eaten the signature curry only once before, years ago, and I remember being entranced by its silky gravy, smooth and deep orange and full of flavour—very much the opposite, in fact, of Kerala’s toddy shop meen curry, which was pungent and overwhelming, and which broke apart into its oil and non-oil layers upon standing for even a few seconds. To my palate, the Mangalore curry was the superior one, and I expected this to be a joyful reunion.

But it didn’t begin well, or perhaps my hopes were set too high. That first curry—turmeric-yellow from a certain angle, red from chilli powder from another—was watery and bland. In the middle of the dish, like an algae-covered rock jutting out of the sea, was a hump of bangda, or mackerel, glinting a silvery green under the light. Mackerel has a famously insistent taste, but this fish was shy and reclusive, as if it would have rather been at home with a good book. I hacked at it from various angles, but it remained dull and uncooperative.

A possible reason revealed itself when I was presented with the bill: Rs 10 for the curry, and another Rs 10 for the dosa I had ordered with it. What kind of fish curry—in this day and age, in a restaurant in a prosperous town—cost Rs 10? I feared the answer. I’d read too much about how quickly mackerel spoiled, and about the scombroid food poisoning that followed rapidly, with its retinue of symptoms: dizziness, rashes, nausea, blurred vision. For the first time in my life, I put down a 50 per cent tip, because I had no smaller notes or coins. My mind reeling, and already feeling faintly ill in my imagination, I left the Hotel Dakshin and walked a dejected kilometre or so. Then, deciding that perhaps another meal would work as some consolation, I entered an eatery called Nihals, sat down, and called weakly for the fish of the day.

More bangda curry arrived, with a serving of coarse red rice and a side of curried potato. But now things were looking up. The mackerel tasted fresher, although still not as distinctive as I expected it to be; its bath of gravy was smoother, speckled with mustard seeds and a whisper of ginger, but it still wasn’t as fierce as I wanted it. Recalling Liebling’s thesis of fieldwork opportunities, I ordered a bangda masala fry (garlic and coconut; crisped; skin blistered and peeling off like that of a banana; very good) and ate my way through this second lunch. When the bill came—Rs 42, which included Rs 30 for the fry—I began to understand and feel better about Mangalore’s prices. If anything, Hotel Dakshin had overcharged me.

Emerging into a mellower late afternoon

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