Fish feast to celebrate Rabindranath Tagore birthday

Kolkata: As a tribute to Rabindranath Tagore on his 157th birth anniversary, the State Fisheries Development Corporation (SFDC) decided to bring in one of the lesser known facets of his life, his love for food, particularly fish.

It is the theme behind observing the three-day fish festival with Tagore’s favourite food items at its restaurant at Nalban Food Park in Salt Lake. The fest named  “Janmadiner Khaowa-dawa” kicked off on Tuesday and will continue till Thursday.

“Observance of Tagore’s birth anniversary through soirees, recitation, dance drama or even discussions. is common. Our director was mulling with the idea of doing something different. We learnt from various books that Tagore was a connoisseur of food. We collected information about his favourite recipes from researchers and books about the life of the poet, and decided to make people savour exotic fish items that were favourites of the bard,” Pijush Dey, project-in-charge of SFDC said.

“Amish-o-Niramish Rand-han” by Prajnasundari Devi, a niece of Rabindranath Tagore, published in 1900, was one of the books consulted by the authorities.

Some of the items that was offered and will be served in the platter for the next two days, included jackfruit fish (carp with jackfruit), spicy boal fish, chingri (prawns) with poppy seeds (posto), pulao sprinkled with fish cubes, shoal fish with green mango, fried chapila fish, prawns in methi leaves, potoler dorma with stuffings of Boal etc.

The items have been priced at a range of Rs 60 to Rs 100.