Caution,meet wind

This needn’t be so. Most mid-bracket restaurants,such as the above,source their seafood from other coastal regions in India during the monsoons. “Our suppliers get their produce from Gujarat and eastern coasts,such as Orissa,” Shetty states. Karkera goes further,stating that even during the rest of the year,he sources seafood from places like Chennai and Cochin in order to get the best produce. Nachiket Shetye,who runs East,a pan-Asian restaurant in Kemps Corner,explains that for a couple of months,fishermen in Mumbai are barred from fishing as the weather is adverse and it is the breeding season for fish. While he prefers sourcing locally when possible,during the monsoons,he heads to Crawford market where seafood from all over the country is available.

For smaller establishments that cannot afford to source anything but local seafood,the recent disaster still doesn’t affect their offering. “During the monsoons,we use frozen surmai and bangda that were fished before the monsoons. The only thing we source from outside Mumbai is karimeen,a fish that is found near Kerala since ours is a Malayali restaurant,” says CH Basheer,the manager of Deluxe. While Shetty refuses to use frozen seafood,he does point out that cultivated seafood is often of good quality these days. He does lament that despite all these measures,one cannot really convince customers that their seafood is free from contamination. Basheer doesn’t worry either,but he does point out that when fishing season gets back into full swing,usually post independence Day,there might be some worries.

This isn’t reflected by fishermen at one of the biggest fishing centres,Sassoon Dock,where fisherman have been granted permits from August 1. Lokiya,a fisherman at a large trawler,says,“We normally go deep-sea fishing towards the north of Maharashtra,almost till Gujarat for 10-12 days. There is no question of any contamination due to oil,” he points out. Keshavram,another fisherman,reasserts this,stating that although he fishes closer to Mumbai,it is at least 25 kilometres from the city and therefore safe. “Most of the damage has been done to the coast itself. Government labs test batches of our fish as most are exported and no contamination has been found in anyone’s catch yet,” he stresses.

Despite these views expressed by those who want you to consume seafood,Deepak Apte,Assistant Director at the Bombay Natural History Society,is personally a bit cautious. “Although most fishing these days is deep-sea fishing,the pragmatic approach would be to avoid crustaceans that are usually sedentary and are found closer to the coast.” Of course,this doesn’t apply to those crustaceans shipped in from other parts of India,but he does raise a question,”How do you know for sure where a particular fish has come from?”