The Bengali love of fish is well known - even when they are eating chicken, they try to imagine that it is fish....a Bengali is fairly easy to spot - they have round faces, round eyes and a glowing skin - no doubt helped by their preferred diet of oily fish.
So it was no surprise to hear my Bengali friend talking endlessly about the restaurants he visited. But one day, he told me a story which was both surprising and touching. His elderly father was in hospital and very poorly, nobody expected him to survive. Hearing about this, one of his clients gave him a gift for his father - a tin of sardines ! My friend recounted this with eyes growing ever rounder....."do you know" he said "you don't have to prepare that fish, you simply open the tin and eat the contents straight away !" He'd reached the age of 42 and didn't know about tinned fish! Needless to say, his father immediately perked up, as you would expect after such a meal !
The pleasure that a tin of sardines brought to a dying man, has transformed my attitude to this maligned fish. I have now introduced my Bengali friend to the delights of tinned tuna and anchovy paste !!
So it was no surprise to hear my Bengali friend talking endlessly about the restaurants he visited. But one day, he told me a story which was both surprising and touching. His elderly father was in hospital and very poorly, nobody expected him to survive. Hearing about this, one of his clients gave him a gift for his father - a tin of sardines ! My friend recounted this with eyes growing ever rounder....."do you know" he said "you don't have to prepare that fish, you simply open the tin and eat the contents straight away !" He'd reached the age of 42 and didn't know about tinned fish! Needless to say, his father immediately perked up, as you would expect after such a meal !
The pleasure that a tin of sardines brought to a dying man, has transformed my attitude to this maligned fish. I have now introduced my Bengali friend to the delights of tinned tuna and anchovy paste !!
