Search
Login
Foodies Only in your inbox
By clicking "Subscribe", you agree to ourPrivacy Policy and to receive marketing emails from Foodies Only
ITC Portal
Copyright © 2025 Foodies Only
Copyright © 2025 Foodies Only
6 Min
09/03/2026
Harpadon nehereus is the lizardfish that coastal Maharashtra calls bombil. It is a translucent, boneless (save for one central spine) fish, and has a strong pungency when dried (called shutki maach in Bengali). Yet for over a century, the English-speaking world has called it Bombay duck, a name that confuses everyone who encounters it for the first time and explains almost nothing about what it actually is. So, where did this absurd name come from?
The fish fry recipe for the Bombay duck is relatively simple, but what is not simple is perhaps its misnomer. It might be from Bombay, but it is no duck, and yet it is quite famous. This slippery little fish has been around since before India’s colonial past, when its overpowering smell allegedly dominated mail (daak) trains carrying dried fish across India. Think of it as the OG ‘you can smell this scene through the screen’ moment that is the hallmark of many food shows and films. The answer to this absurd name is tied to railways, a pinch of linguistic mangling, and the peculiarly British habit of nicknaming things they found baffling.
Bombil is a species of lizardfish that lives in the warm, muddy shallows of the Arabian Sea, primarily along the coasts of Maharashtra and Gujarat, with smaller populations stretching into the Bay of Bengal. The flesh is soft, almost gelatinous when fresh, and collapses easily. It has a single central bone and, distributed through the flesh, a network of very fine, soft bones that largely dissolve when the fish is cooked right.
Fresh bombil is used in a popular fish fry recipe, where the fish is fried in semolina (bombil rava fry), a signature preparation style of the Konkan coast, which makes for a crispy fish fry. It is eaten across Maharashtra and Karnataka. The smell that defines the dried fish is largely absent in the fresh preparation.
Its high protein content, around 62g per 100g of raw fish, is also the source of its notorious smell. Bacteria break down those proteins during drying, releasing trimethylamine, the compound responsible for that pungency. The Koli fishing communities of Mumbai have been sun-drying fish for centuries by pegging them onto bamboo rack structures called valandis on the beach. The dried version – sukat – is a great snack or a condiment crumbled over dal and rice.
Like all great riddles, this one too comes in a trilogy of confusion.
When the British introduced rail networks across the Indian subcontinent, dried bombil (loitta or lote maach) was already a prized commodity in Bengal. The fish came from coastal Maharastra and the mail train carrying this cargo was called the Bombay Dak in Hindi and Marathi, where dak means ‘mail’ or ‘post’. In Bengali, it is daak.
The train cars reeked, thanks to the sundried fish. The British, being British, came up with the phrase ‘you smell like the Bombay Dak’, which became a genuine insult of the era. Eventually, the fish itself became synonymous with the train that transported it. Bombay Dak became Bombay duck thanks to the British tendency to domesticate unfamiliar words into something that sounded more familiar.
A second theory holds that the name is an anglicisation of the Marathi market call ‘bombil tak, bombil tak’, essentially translating to ‘here is bombil’, which fishermen shouted while selling their catch of the day. The ones who bought them must’ve had a kitchen filled with the mouthwatering smell of their own fish fry recipe.
The Marathi phrase was misheard by British ears, and it was approximated into ‘Bombay duck’, and the name stuck. This theory also holds weight given how frequently colonial names derived from misheard local phrases, but it lacks the evidence that backs the rail-mail theory, with written records dating back to 1815 and 1829.
Since this stinky fish was loved by the Bengali community, and they may have indulged in sampling the fish fry recipe, there are chances this theory could also be true. It is said that Robert Clive, the first British Governor of the Bengal Presidency, supposedly encountered the fish during the conquest of Bengal and declared its smell reminiscent of the mail dispatches arriving from Bombay.
The fish also has a Hindu origin story, though it tells you more about its reputation for stubbornness than its name. According to the legend, when Lord Rama required the help of all sea creatures to build his bridge to Lanka, every fish obliged, except the bombil. An enraged Rama flung it aside into the waters near Bombay. The story is offered, with some affection, as an explanation for both the fish's coastal distribution and the unusual softness of its bones.
By the late 20th century, Bombay duck had a strong following in Britain, with around 13 tonnes consumed annually. In 1997, however, the European Commission banned all Indian seafood imports after salmonella was found in some processing facilities. The blanket ban also affected bombil, even though inspectors had not examined the beach-based drying methods used by traditional fishermen. The decision hit Koli fishing communities hard and even drove a long-standing Billingsgate trader into bankruptcy.
The Indian High Commission launched a ‘Save Bombay Duck’ campaign, while British businessman David Delaney spent years challenging the ruling. Eventually, the ban was eased on the condition that bombil could still be dried the same way, but had to be packed in an EU-approved facility before export.
One of the greatest examples of phonetics meeting foreign tongues and ears, as well as olfactory senses, is the tale of the Bombay duck. While it is still much loved as a fish fry recipe, its name is essentially a colonial artefact. The name belongs to the colonial period, and the fish belongs to the coast, and both have outlasted the empire that generated the confusion.
