The Bombay duck or bummalo (Harpadon nehereus, Bengali: bamaloh or loita, 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.

Etymology

Bombay duck on display for sale in a street fish market in Mumbai

The origin of the term "Bombay duck" is uncertain. One popular etymology relates to railroads. The shoals of fish on 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 the eastern Bengal were made aware of the large availability of the locally prized fish on India's western coasts and began importing them via the railways. Since the smell of the dried fish was overpowering, its transportation was later consigned to the 'Mail' Train. The mail train — the Bombay Mail or the Bombay Daak — thus reeked of the fish smell and 'You smell like the Bombay Duck', 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 amongst the British public by its appearance in Indian restaurants across the country.

European Union import restrictions

In 1997, Bombay duck was banned by the European Commission (EC) of the European Union. The EC admitted that it had no "sanitary" evidence against the product and the UK Public Health Laboratory Service confirmed that there are no recorded cases of food poisoning, or bacterial contamination, associated with Bombay duck. It was banned because the EC only allows fish imports from India from approved freezing and canning factories, and bombay duck is not produced in factories. Prior to the ban, consumption in the United Kingdom was over 13 tonnes per year.

According to "The Save Bombay Duck campaign",^[3] the Indian High Commission approached the European Commission about the ban. The EC adjusted the regulations so that the fish can still be dried in the open air but has to be packed in an "EC approved" packing station. A Birmingham wholesale merchant was able to locate a packing source in Mumbai, and the product became available again in the United Kingdom.

Bombay duck is available fresh in Canada in cities with large Indian populations, such as Toronto and Montreal and is generally known as bumla. Although mainly popular with Indians from Bengal, southern Gujarat, coastal Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka, it is increasingly consumed by the other South Asian populations, Bangaladeshis in particular.

References

1. ^ duck, n.1. Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition, 1989; online version December 2011. Accessed 2 February 2012.
2. ^ IR History: Early Days - I. Indian Railways Fan Club website. Accessed 2 February 2012.
3. ^ "Save Bombay Duck". Bombay-duck.co.uk. 2003-12-16. http://www.bombay-duck.co.uk/index.html. Retrieved 2009-07-25. 

• "Harpadon nehereus". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=162425. Retrieved 18 April 2006. 
• Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). "Harpadon nehereus" in FishBase. January 2006 version.