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Pronoti Datta’s new book rewrites Mumbai’s food history
Updated On: 14 December, 2025 08:46 AM IST | Mumbai | Debjani Paul
From legends about Lord Rama and Bombay Duck, to tales of some of Mumbai’s oldest foods that have all but disappeared from common knowledge, Pronoti Datta’s new book serves up the city’s food history perfectly prepared to a golden crisp
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Pronoti Datta at CD’Souza Marosas, a Goan restaurant in Dhobi Talao that has stood the test of time for over 70 years. Pics/Kirti Surve Parade
Quick Read
So much has been written already about Mumbai, its food, and cultural history that it’s hard to find anything new to write about. And yet, as we begin Mumbai author Pronoti Datta’s new book, In the Beginning There Was Bombay Duck, we’re immediately bombarded by juicy morsels of information we had never tasted before.
For example, did you know that there’s a legend tying the famous Bombay Duck or Bombil fish to Lord Rama? There’s unlikely to be anyone who doesn’t know what Bombay Duck is. Whether or not you’ve sampled it fried in rava at any of the innumerable Gomantaks lining the coastal city, the rows of drying fish along our beaches will not have escaped your eyes — or nose. The aroma gave even the British colonisers pause, making Bombay a poor second choice when compared to their former Indian capital of Calcutta. No matter how far up north they went, the suburbs kept getting “fishy, fishier, fishiest”, Datta cites James Douglas, the one-time sheriff of Bombay (in 1893 and 1902), as having written. The story of how the fish came to be called Bombay Duck (transported to the rest of India by the mail train, Bombay Daak) is now common knowledge. Datta digs deeper into the past and finds an account written by ethnographer Govind Narayan in 1863 that narrates the legend of why this fish had to be transported by train in the first place — because of a curse from Lord Rama!
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