29. A Fish called “Bombay Duck”

One particularly cold morning this past winter still stands out clearly in my mind. When I caught up with my friend Jules at the pier on my early morning walks, she was very keen to tell me that she had caught what she described as a “strange looking” fish. Her husband, Logan, who was fishing within hearing distance, called out to me that he had caught one before, and that it was a fish known as a “Grinner”.  

Jules considered this fish to be a “scary looking creature”, and few people would disagree with her on that.  After looking at it for a moment she had had no hesitation in throwing it straight back into the water and Logan’s view was that, unless you wanted to keep it for bait, it was not worth keeping. In his considered opinion it was not a “very good eating fish” and the fishermen nearby him on the pier had voiced their opinions on this fish by nodding their heads in agreement with him.

Fortunately for me, a week or so later, someone else on the pier had also caught a grinner and I had just happened to be there. He kindly held it up for me so that I could take the two photos shown at the top of this page.

Looking at the above photos, I think that your reaction to them would be similar to mine, which is that, when this fish looks at you, it seems to grin, however, that, with its razorsharp teeth (which one fisherman referred to as “one hell of a set of choppers”), the grin looks more like one belonging to a “smiling assassin”. I think we would all agree that it is a truly savage-looking fish.

Grinners are also known as lizardfish. I understand that they are usually caught by fishermen who are actually fishing for flathead and that in recent years there appear to be more of them here in Moreton Bay than ever before. Having said that, I am simply passing on the bits and pieces of information which I hear from others on the pier. I am not a fisherman myself, so for reliable information on any of my “fishy” comments, you would need to go elsewhere.

For a different and interesting story about our “smiling assassin”, I would like to take you briefly to India, where a cousin of the grinners, a related type of lizardfish known there as “Bombay Duck”, can be found. Some fishermen here have heard of this name, but not many know the fascinating history behind it.

I asked my friend Viv about it because he was born in India and lived in Bombay, which is, of course, now familiar to us as “Mumbai”. Viv certainly was aware of the fish species called “Bombay Duck” and he told me that almost everyone who lives in Mumbai would know about it. In fact, his mother used to cook it and he himself loved to eat it in his earlier years. Viv also told me that eating this particular fish was thought to be good for your health, as it helps to prevent the build-up of cholesterol which can block our arteries.

This fish, when it is dried and salted, is very popular in India, not only in Mumbai, but throughout most parts of the country. It’s also popular in other countries, however, it does have an extremely powerful smell. The odour of the drying fish is so strong that the British who came out to India in the early years of occupation feared that it was harmful to their health. Bombay Duck is also eaten in Sri Lanka and is exported from India to other countries with large Indian populations.

The name “Bombay Duck” dates from the days of the Raj, which is the period from 1858 to 1947, when India was known as “British India”. During the Raj the dried fish was sent from Bombay to Calcutta by a special train, the “Bombay Mail” or “Bombay Daak”. The word “daak” is said to be the word for mail in the Bengal language. Over time, “Bombay Daak”, gradually changed to “Bombay Duck”.

During the Raj, Robert Clive, a former governor who was based in Bengal, in the eastern part of the subcontinent, is said to have been the first person to use the term “Bombay Duck” when he tasted a piece of this fish. I think this may be a far-fetched story, but he apparently associated the smell with that of the newspapers and mail which arrived in Calcutta from Bombay.

I’m sure that there are quite a few stories which can be told about this fish with the “catchy” name. There is even a song, written by Mina Kava, an Indian composer, which is named Bombay Duck. One of the lines in it reads:

“He’s the strangest little duck, this little ducky never clucks”

My friend Viv does not think that the Bombay Duck from India and our fish, the grinner from Moreton Bay, are the same kind of fish. He may well be right, but I’d still like to believe that they’re both lizardfish, otherwise, this would not be much of a story!

Finally, I know that this may be a short and smelly tale but at least it’s a tale with a satisfying ending in that, when Jules threw her strange looking fish back into the water, it was the grinner who had the last laugh, happily swimming away, still smiling!

O.P.

P.S. Next Sunday’s post will be about beautiful Einbunpin lagoon and some of its history.