Hilsa, (Ilish) is no longer just the Bengali gourmet’s delight.

You could have knocked me down with a feather, albeit an iron one. I was sitting with my Punjabi friends and talking about some good gourmet experiences we had. Their reactions amazed me, “ Have the hilsa, and not with the bones”. For long years, it was a fish that only easterners talked about. East India was passionate about the hilsa fish, but the rest of India had no idea what it was all about. But, that, as I can see now, is no longer the case. The Hilsa has been co-opted --- it’s no longer the secret closely guarded by the east. Those who had never eaten a hilsa are doing so with a real vengeance these days.

I know the passionate hilsa lover would rather go on a fast than eat boneless hilsa. I have friends and relatives who tell me that half the fun of eating a hilsa lies in talking the bones in and out. I, however, have large legion of friends who love their fish, but have been avoiding the hilsa because of its bones. And many of them think the boneless hilsa is the best discovery after the remote.

In the age of entrepreneurship, I suppose the hilsa has found new avatars. In restaurants where the hilsa is served, they are looking at novel ways of preparing the fish. Hilsa prepared with pumpkin leaves, coconut, mustard and mango pickle is one of the wonderful recipes. The fish is sometimes wrapped in a nice and leafy bottle gourd leaf and steamed along with rice. The fish is then served with the leaf, which is great to eat, especially when the plant is a young one.

The hilsa , truly, is a wonderful fish. The sea fish goes to the river to spawn ------- and the taste changes radically. It’s the queen of fish. In fact, if you take all the different ways of cooking the fish into account, it’s an entire house of royals all by itself.