Featured Post

Great Tastes - Pineapple Crab

-
Image
  From Ruby's Kitchen Crab in Pineapple Crab in pineapple served with corn pulao, salad and chutney Recipe & Method of Preparation Ingredients for Crab (dressed) -500 g Onion Paste -  2 tbsp Garlic paste - 1 tbsp Ginger Paste - 1 tbsp Green Chilli paste(deseeded) 6 pcs Tomato paste ( deseeded ) 3 tbsp Coriander 1 tsp, Cumin 1/2 tsp, Fennel 1 tsp, cloves 1 tsp, black pepper 1 tsp, sesame seed 1 tsp. (All spices to be dry roasted and powdered) Grated coconut 4 tbsp ( ground to powder form ), Basil leaves 2  tbsp              Cooking method Crabs to be thoroughly washed and then mixed with turmeric and salt. Sauté the onions and garlic ginger paste using 2 tbsp oil in a kadai till the onions turn light brown. Next, place the crabs in for frying. After about 5 min pour the dry roasted masala and coconut tomato paste. Keep frying till it dries. Add salt to taste. This process should be carried out in low flame. Meanwhile, slit the pineap...
Post a Comment

Fishy Affair

-

 


A Delectable Tale for Fish Lovers

by Rajat Sarkar,Hamburg

Some days back a friend told me that the ‘fish’ in ‘some’ restaurant was good. She got to know about it from her brother. She is herself not a fish eater.

I said to her, “Never say anything to a Bengali about fish and their quality. Leave the Bengali alone! Fish exists in the Bengali psyche from the womb to the tomb! Satyajit Ray even made use of fish scales in one of his movies.  The world, including Hamburg, may boast about its fish but none can match the Bengali’s affairs, both licit and illicit, with fish. While the EU and Britain may continue to fight over fishing rights on the North Sea, Bengalis handle fish with care so that there is no real culture clash, domestic disharmony, marriage mistrust, relationship rupture, and sport strife. Fish exists in the everyday existence of a Bengali. Fishy politics ensure pride of Bengaliness. And a Bengali eats fish with his/her hands – not with cutlery or chopsticks. The path to fish-related sensation is through nerves connected to the soul.

Fish sold in the ‘suave’ world is without passion - The maacher tel (fish liver, fat, and intestines) are thrown away. I have also been witness to a Bengali, in Germany, discarding the fish head while buying carp. It was an insult to my conscience.

Fashion, sophistication, and style are devoid of emotions. Life is meaningless without emotions!

Possibly only the Japanese can match a Bengali’s appetite for fish. However, unlike the Japanese, a Bengali never eats raw fish (Sushi). For a Bengali, it has to be cooked. Bengalis’ fish cooking is a different subject altogether.

And in Germany fried fish in a batter and/or fried plain and served with garlic sauce, remoulade, or dill sauce (horrible) makes the Bengali feel like a beggar. Life is a tale of compromises.

The puffery of caviar is irritating to the Bengali atman. It is of no significance that caviar is served on mother of pearl spoons to prevent blighting of its taste. It is indeed weird that caviar is served as a garnish or as a spread. A Bengali grows up eating fish roe, fish head, and fish liver, fat, and intestines (maacher tel). The taste of the roe of the Hilsa(Illish) can be matched by nothing, taking into consideration that caviar is the most expensive food in the world.  Money cannot by taste!

One may argue that tastes are a matter of individual predilection. If that were true, why is there hype about caviar and salmon? While accepting that salmon tastes awesome, the Bengali cannot be bullied by any taste mafia in respect of fish! The humble pabda, chital, koi, topshe… can beat all fish from the great oceans and other water bodies on the planet. And then there is Ilish (Tenualosa ilisha). All discussions end there.

fish preparation
A sorshe (mustard) preparation of Hilsa Fish

Overfishing due to the rising population and greed is heartbreaking for the Bengali. Bengalis, as it is, are gradually losing their connection to the kitchen. Fish is crucial to Bengali civility, hospitality, and sensibility. It is the vivers of the beauty of Bengali women. That fish is gradually disappearing from the plate of the Bengali due to unaffordability and change of tastes, reflects a civilization in decline.

 Booking.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Granada

-
Image
Granada   ANDALUSIAN SPAIN Granada The bus journey from Madrid to Andalusia was strangely inviting. Andalusia is the southernmost part of Spain, also known as the Iberian Peninsula. The bosky landscape around was wild and cultivated. Cultivated with fleeting patches of olive orchards, which at some places spread far into the horizon? Traversing through the heart of Spain and somewhere at the back of my mind the landscape triggered the swashbuckling identity of the historical country. In search of El Dorado maybe one of the reasons why the Moors from Africa invaded Andalusia after crossing the strait of Gibraltar in the early 8 th century. They ruled this part of Spain till the 15 th century. Spain’s heartland, known as the Meseta, is a large plateau with an average elevation of six hundred meter above sea level is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula. Since Madrid lies on this plateau most of the journey up to Granada was through this fas...
Read more

Florence

-
Image
FLORENCE     Florence –  the capital of the Tuscany region and the cradle of Renaissance   We opted for Flix Bus while traveling from Venice to Florence. The road journey takes about three and a half-hour. In Florence, it terminates at the rear end of Santa Maria Novella (SMN) train station. One of Italy’s busiest stations, it got its name from Santa Maria Novella Church just across the plaza from the main entrance. We debarked at the station and refreshed ourselves at McDonald's before hiring a cab for our hotel. Florence, popularly known as ‘Firenze’ by the Italians, is located in central Italy. This dreamy city with a romantic name is the regional capital of the lovely Tuscany region.   Columbus Hotel, where we stayed, is located in Lugarno District. We always prefer to book our hotels through Booking.com as we always land up getting good hotels at good locations. Despite being a little away from the heart of the city and...
Read more

A Roman Holiday

-
Image
ROMA - Ancient Rome & Papal Rome Imagine going back 2000 years in time and space while standing on the stone floor inside a colossal amphitheater. Amidst thousands of Roman spectators. The booms of drums reverberate as the ceremonial parade enters the stadium. After saying ‘Ave imperator; morituri te salutant’ (those who are about to die salute you) to the Emperor, the gladiatorial combat begins. The crowd shouts jeers and throw their hands up in excitement. 60000 spectators? Like the excitement at Eden Gardens in Calcutta while watching a Cricket match. The gestures, the excitement, the uproar may be different from our present-day Mexican waves. But how does that matter? After all, a stadium is a venue for entertainment – be it the bloodiest sport in the history of mankind. And how the Romans loved watching violence and killings. Historians remain befuddled as to how Romans who are regarded as the precursor of human civilization could have indulged and e...
Read more

Phnom Penh - from Killing Fields to a Humane City

-
Image
Phnom Penh-a great Cambodian City Time began with the Big Bang about 13.77 billion years ago. Our universe originated and began expanding from Day One which included the formation of our planet Earth. But not so long ago, on 17th April 1975, a Cambodian school teacher Pol Pot (who had been to Paris on scholarship to study Radio Electronics and returned to Cambodia to take up a teaching assignment) declared Year Zero in Cambodia. That was in line with the concept of Year One declared during the French Revolution. The idea was to discard and destroy all culture and traditions within the society and bring in revolutionary culture. President Lon Nol fled Cambodia on 1st April 1975 following a bloody civil war that lasted for five years. And on 17th April 1975, a swarm of locusts in the guise of Khmer Rouge descended on Phnom Penh to devour teachers, artists, and intelligentsia of the Cambodian capital. Pol Pot’s intention was to eliminate threats to his idea of agrarian society. That wa...
Read more