Paanchmeshali Fish Curry

I have never heard of Paanchmeshali Fish Curry. The name is derived from the Paanchmeshali (5 Mix) Vegetable. It is a very common vegetarian dish in many Bengali households. This dish uses simple seasonal local vegetables which are cooling soothing and easily available during the summer-monsoon season. It uses minimum spices- just a hint of 5 spice while tempering the oil and it’s done.

Now while I love this simple vegetarian dish, I am also thinking about how to make it a one-pot meal by adding fish. Then I don’t need to make another protein dish. Especially important to save time when I am working with just 1 induction stove. Just a practical way to adapt some traditional learnings in our own daily modern lives. I am made to complete cooking with lesser ingredients, lesser time, minimal equipment and fewer helping hands.

Panchmeshali Fish Curry has a place

I have taken up a smaller apartment in my hometown. I am staying to support my family and a few old friends. Truly they help me too in small ways. This is my way of experiencing some of the practical problems that I heard about before. But I was too far away to actually feel it. I realised that coordinating your work timing with a temporary helper or a cook is a problem for many.

This is my 11th house shifting and yet nobody understood the pains I have had to go through just to have a roof over my head. Was I protesting too much against repeated assault on a woman trying to live and work in India outside of her parental or in-laws home? Same family which protects men from such “impossibly difficult” chores asks the woman to do this repeatedly on her own- weird?

Many had to give up cooking for the sheer lack of time or space to do so. Many others lost the interest because there was so much of unappreciated labour behind it. The simple joy of cooking for people you love became a humongous chore of managing multiple complicated other issues.

Children anyways took the food for granted and slowly there are more options. They seem easier, faster and simpler to adopt. Which child, young adult or even a tired mom will not grab a burger when there’s a cook taking sudden leave of absence? Is this post trying to encourage people to cook or making it sound even more complicated?

Well, if you have a cook you appreciate too much, they might leave suddenly. And you are held hostage to a breakdown in your smooth functioning household.

Paanchmeshali Fish Curry -rejected as a suggestion

My understanding is that food was deprioritized by many for this obvious reason. It’s a painpoint. It’s a basic building block and yet taken for granted. Food tastes have changed so much for most people in a household, that sometimes, it’s difficult to have a meal together. Sometimes it means you have to eat the same thing every day or become completely voiceless.

Somehow the people who cook still prioritise the needs and wants of the so-called “Man of the Household”. Sometimes it is as narrated by the “Woman of the Household”. Or it’s all about the boss baby of the household. We find parents and others dancing around their meals, school timing or other very essential appointments. It’s a very roundabout complicated circle here in my hometown.

I decided to capture that through a simple modification of adding Katla Fish to the Panchmeshali or 5 Mix Vegetable curry. It’s healthier than an oilier Fish Curry like say Fish Kalia or Doi Maachh. It’s definitely tastier than the original vegetable that it derives its name from. You may say, its a bit quirky and weird- familiar but not exactly part of your family.

Imagine an outsider who is indulged with the oft used click of the tongue like “isshhh” or “baechara” or “bechari“. Supposedly the confused idiot child who didn’t have the good fortune to have strong deep roots.

Or perhaps seen as a rebel not knowing “proper” way of doing things in life. You know- as prescribed by the Shastras or the cooking manuals given by the Nazi warriors in each household.

Paanchmeshali Fish Curry has no supporters

You may get a response of a grimace from another person consuming it or a condescending suggestion. There maybe another who has many texts and paeans of expert advice on this. I invite you to make that dish again. And do ask them to cook every day for a child next. Preferably one who will spit out food or vomit all over their clothes for various unknown reasons. Are you a hapless parent already facing this or have gone through this traumatic rite of passage? Well, then read on.

You may have the luxury to cook and eat just as you please now. My household cooking is not child-proofed- younger kids or older ones.

If you don’t know how to pick out bones from a fish, you may have a problem. If you like to eat mindlessly and want something to spoon or shuffle in- you may have a problem. When you are having a meal in a hurry to run, you may have a problem. And finally, you may find reading this post itself a problem.

For so many women who have struggled on this front everyday, I am sharing this recipe in solidarity. May you never have to explain your food choices at some point of your life.

Paanchmeshali Fish Curry has 5 Vegetables

I am using the traditional summer vegetables that go into this curry. There’s potato, brinjal (eggplant), pumpkin, ridgegourd and pointed gourd (parwal). Funnily these are the very vegetables I hated growing up because we had so much of it. Now that I grow older and have more choices available, I find myself craving these old nostalgic flavours again. I haven’t found a way to recreate the same flavours with other vegetables. But there are other vegetables that can be added like radish, broad beans and other types of gourds.

I went through a phase in life where there was a strict authoritarian rule from my husband. He wouldn’t allow any kinds of gourds inside our home/kitchen. I think that was an imposition of food choices by gym trainers that lasted quite a few weeks or months. It made me feel more strongly the discrimination against some of us who wanted a taste of our childhood foods. Perhaps the quest for that perfect 10 figure by some of the residents and workers added to his pressure. That made it easier to mock the diets of others who may perhaps have a deeper sense of identity.

Your figure or your carrying of branded accessories/clothing or the car you flaunted is not you. This is the thought I wish to leave behind. Many tried to force fit such values into others to make their reality the benchmark of “success”

Today, I weigh more than when I got married- but I write freely. I cook freely. I don’t have to feel ashamed about turmeric stains in my hands. Perhaps, I don’t get mocked often by others who showed me vouchers for getting manicured hands. Let’s just say, I never played with Barbie dolls and I don’t aspire for a world that is so plastic.

Paanchmeshali Fish Curry has 5 Spices

I have used many different spices for fish curries. And you can really go wild on this one. But the original recipe of the vegetarian curry has the light fragrance of 5 whole Spice. It is used to temper the oil which I may have written about earlier. It’s a mix of cumin seeds, nigella seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds and mustard seeds.

In some cases, we find radhuni or parsley seeds added to this mix. Today, I debated whether to add this mix – would it taste good with fish curry. It’s actually not used in fish curries in my family but my helper said they do use it. I thought, why not. Since I used a freshwater river fish (not too smelly)- it actually tastes better with lesser spices.

An addition of green chillies, bay leaf, ginger garlic paste and lots of coriander- thats it. Isn’t it very simple? Oh yes, cooking this is mustard oil is recommended for its characteristic pungent flavour and aroma.

Why cook it?

I have come to realise that even academic studies cited by different lobbies are definitely funded. Usually by somebody who is trying to force a decision in some direction. Well it’s not just gym trainers and western media you know. We have extremists everywhere waving their own so-called identity flags.

Today, I feel almost threatened to change my food choices. Have you been attacked by vegetarian lobbies, vegan lobbies, mothers against cooking lobbies? Or maybe fathers purporting to be feminist lobbies, authentic food of my region lobbies and children demanding packaged snacks lobbies. Where does this humble fish curry stand? Nowhere actually.

I can only say, to those who are curious- it’s simple and easy to make. It uses fresh local ingredients and is a one pot meal served with rice for those who like fish.

The reason I made it is to remind myself to eat fresh healthy home cooked meal. I try to share it with others I care for or love. It hasn’t been easy to just have a roof over my head or my own kitchen to cook this food.

This Sunday, I share this as a homage to many elders who cooked for us lovingly. Those meals helped us grow up over the years. Most of them are no longer with us.

Footnote

Letter of condolence

At least you live- freely somewhere

I die a thousand deaths each day

Trying to live up to a name and reputation

That is slowly but surely chipped and tarnished

By my own mother who gave birth

And is determined to seek vengeance

From whoever is nearby in order to reclaim

A non-existent self-appointed puritanical throne

I told repeatedly your son and son-in-law

Grabbed that through years of lies and deceit

Kindly spare me the narrative

Of my marriage being illicit.

Melting Lemon Drop 19.07.2026