“Ilshe gudi, ilshe gudi, ilish macher dim...” — the old Bengali rhyme celebrating hilsa roe captures something that words like “seasonal fish” can hardly explain. For Bengalis, the arrival of hilsa – also called ilish – is not merely the arrival of a prized ingredient; it is a seasonal event, a culinary ritual and, for many, a return to childhood. As the monsoon arrives, conversations turn inevitably towards ilish—its size, fat, provenance, roe and price. Is it from the Padma or the Ganga? Is it a fatty male or a roe-filled female? Should it be fried, steamed with mustard, cooked with posto or turned into a bhorta? The questions are endless because ilish is never simply dinner. It is memory served on a plate. More Than A Fish, A Family Ritual For Kolkata-based chef Auroni Mookerjee, the relationship begins much earlier than cultural history or culinary tradition. “I think before we get into the cultural, religious or social memories around ilish, the most important place to begin with is family memory,” he says. “Eating ilish is a rite of passage that is passed down.” For many Bengali children, learning to eat ilish is almost a culinary initiation. The fish's formidable collection of fine bones requires patience and technique. Someone at the family table teaches the child how to navigate them, how to separate flesh from bone and how to savour the fatty pieces. “Before ilish becomes cultural memory, it becomes muscle memory,” says Mookerjee. “It starts in your most intimate setting, which is the family dining table.” The excitement begins even before the fish reaches the plate. There is the inspection of the catch, discussions about its size and origin, debates over which portions should be fried or steamed, and anticipation around the first meal. “You learn how to eat it before you learn what it means,” Mookerjee adds. Only later does the larger cultural significance reveal itself—from jora ilish during Shashti Pujo to the playful East Bengal–Mohun Bagan rivalry, where ilish and chingri have long served as culinary symbols of identity. The Taste Of A Particular River Mookerjee believes there is a gastronomic reason the fish inspires such devotion. “I definitely don't think our relationship with ilish is just nostalgia,” he says. “With ilish, there is something else at play. It is quite literally about terroir.” Having tasted hilsa from different river systems, including the Indus, Irrawaddy and Godavari—where it is known as pulasa—Mookerjee says Gangetic ilish possesses a distinctive character. “The fat, the marbling, the texture of the flesh, even the tail—there are nuances that, once you know them, are difficult to ignore.” It is this combination of geography, ecology and culinary knowledge that makes the fish so fascinating. The river system, the alluvial landscape and the delta shape the fish, while generations of cooks have developed an instinct for how best to treat it. “The landscape produces the fish, generations learn to understand its particular qualities, and that accumulated understanding becomes culture,” he explains. In other words, Bengal did not simply decide to romanticise ilish. The romance has been built around a very specific taste. When The Monsoon Means Ilish The arrival of ilish has long been closely associated with the monsoon, when the fish migrates from the sea into rivers for breeding. For Bengalis, this seasonal appearance has acquired almost ritualistic importance. Sujoy Chatterjee, co-founder of Amar Khamar, traces the significance of ilish even further back into mythology and literature. “The arrival of ilish has a deep connection with us in the story of Ganga Sagar and Samudra Manthan,” he says. “Ilish has a connection of coming on earth as a heavenly creature.” References to the fish also appear in Annada Mangal, the 18th-century Bengali epic, as well as in folk tales and poetry. “Ilish is part of our culture and storytelling and becomes a part of our urban culture as ilish is part of all our rituals,” Chatterjee says. “It is our very long connection to it that makes it so significant.” That connection has only strengthened with the passing of generations. Every monsoon brings back the same familiar cravings—and, often, the same family recipes. Bhaja, Bhapa And The Art Of Doing Less Few fish are celebrated through such a repertoire of preparations while simultaneously demanding such restraint, but for Mookerjee, some of the simplest preparations remain the most revealing. “I still love the simplest preparations of ilish the most,” he says. “A simple bhaja or bhapa might be the perfect way to eat the fish because they allow you to enjoy the tel, the fat and the flesh in two very different textures and flavour profiles.” His approach is deeply rooted in the Bengali culinary philosophy of allowing ilish to remain unmistakably ilish. “With ilish, the fish itself is the event,” he says. “The cooking exists to reveal what is already there.” The Challenge Of The Bones Part of the ilish mystique lies in the very thing that makes it difficult to eat: its bones. “There are so many of them,” says Mookerjee, who has been exploring a more comprehensive, nose-to-tail approach to the fish. His experimentation at Yokocho has involved looking beyond the conventional fillet and exploring the roe, liver, tail, organs and bones. Inspired by techniques from Japanese fish butchery, American shad traditions and the work of whole-fish chefs such as Josh Niland, he has been working on ways to use the fish more completely. The breakthrough came with learning to pin-bone an entire ilish fillet without sacrificing the flesh. That opened the door to experiments with smoked hilsa, ilish roe bottarga and even an XO sauce made from the bones. “What excited me was that the technique became more complicated while the flavour became simpler,” he says. For Mookerjee, this is not innovation for innovation's sake. Instead, it is an attempt to understand the fish more completely. “Pin-boning, smoking, whole-fish butchery, bottarga, XO—these techniques should not exist to make ilish taste like something new,” he explains. “They should allow us to understand and celebrate more completely what was already extraordinary about the fish.” From Ganga And Padma To Gujarat And Myanmar The romance around ilish is increasingly complicated by questions of availability and affordability. Chatterjee points out that sourcing has changed significantly over the years. “Earlier Bengal used to eat ilish from Ganga and Padma, but now we also get ilish from Gujarat and Myanmar,” he says. “And the flow of ilish from Bangladesh also fluctuates as per the existing policy.” There was a time, he recalls, when Kolkata diners could identify the provenance of their fish simply by tasting it. Freezing technology and changing supply chains have complicated that relationship. At the same time, scarcity has arguably made ilish even more aspirational. “As more people want to eat ilish, it has become part of a yearly bucket list,” says Chatterjee. Smaller fish are increasingly consumed because larger specimens can be prohibitively expensive. For many households, therefore, buying a large, fatty ilish remains an event. Tradition Must Evolve The question now is how far ilish can travel beyond its traditional preparations without losing its soul. Chatterjee believes innovation is inevitable. “It is a moving tradition, so it's only natural that new chefs will invent new techniques,” he says. “However, when convenience takes precedence over its essence, then that's not innovation but a loss.” That distinction is important. Ilish has survived because generations have adapted the way they cook and eat it without losing sight of what makes it special. Mookerjee's own experiments follow the same principle. Whether it is smoked ilish, bottarga or an XO sauce made from its bones, the objective remains the same: let the ilish taste of ilish. A Taste of Bengal's Identity Food historian and writer Chitrita Banerji, in Life and Food in Bengal, captures the extraordinary place hilsa occupies in Bengali food culture, describing it as having become more than a mere accompaniment to rice and recalling preparations that reveal its “delicate intensity.” That intensity explains why ilish has endured not merely as a dish but as a cultural marker. It appears in literature, mythology, family stories, football rivalries and monsoon rituals. It is debated at fish markets, discussed over lunch tables and anticipated months in advance. And perhaps that is why the Bengali obsession with ilish is so difficult to explain to an outsider. It is about the first time someone taught you how to pick out its bones. The smell of mustard oil heating in the kitchen . The excitement of seeing a large ilish arrive home. The argument over Ganga versus Padma. The first monsoon rain. The plate of steaming rice beside a perfectly cooked piece of fish. Ilish is seasonal, elusive and sometimes maddeningly difficult to eat. And yet, for Bengalis, that effort is part of the pleasure. Because with ilish, the journey from river to plate—and from one generation to the next—is as important as the meal itself.
Elle Gourmet India
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