Vanjaram Fish - Shocking Truths !!

  Food adulteration is an old topic but when you get to see it through your own eyes then you are in for a shock. Sunday afternoon is not complete without a Non vegetarian dish in India and when lockdown was imposed on Sundays in India you should see the crowd in front of poultry and fish markets on Saturdays for you to believe whether corona really existed. Often our class teachers used to comment "Why do this class behave like a Fish market?" Fish market is a happening place and I love shopping in these markets because I missed this for over a decade. I usually visit Puthur Fish maket in Trichy and since the place is about to be renovated, I switched to Woraiyur market. My first choice would always be Vanjaram and there is big, medium and small categories; You have to go pretty early like 5.30 am to get Big Vanjarams as the restaurant business and Catering chefs come early and pick all the big ones. I usually go in at 7 to 8 am and I get to see only medium and small ones. Vanjarams are fleshy and ideal for both frying and Fish Kolambu and the best part is it has got little thorns. Suddenly one fine day I see the newspaper with an article that in Woraiyur Fish market, FSSAI authorities has seized 650 kgs of fish since fish was laced with Formalin. 

  Everything is sensitized in India for unknown reasons so I did my exploration to know what the inside story of this episode is. First and foremost, Vanjaram belong to "Sea food" meaning it can be found only in oceans. So, for places like Trichy, Madurai, Tanjore, Coimbatore and basically Noncoastal areas it has to be transported to local markets. Assume fish is caught on Wednesday in places like Rameswaram or Kadalore and it is consolidated on wednesday and by Thursday it leaves the source. On Friday it reaches destination to the big wholesale merchants who control the local market. Bidding happens on Friday and local retailers buy from wholesale merchants based on their level of Business. On Saturday and Sunday local merchants have all the fish they need. Now if you note the fish that was caught on Wednesday is what you buy on Sunday. Tamil Nadu is hot at least eight out of twelve months and for the fish not to decay for four days there is whole lot of things that happen. Western countries are able to retain the shelf life through Cold storage and other latest technology available at their disposal but over here 'Cost' plays the role in how food storage is handled. 'Ice', 'Ammonia' and 'Formalin' are three methods adopted by merchants to retain shelf life of the fish. When I say 'Ice', merchants usually have a thermocol box and have loads of ice on all sides of the fish to make sure fish does not get spoilt. But do you think mineral water was used to make Ice? Ice is usually bought from ice factories and on many occasions ice is prepared from unhygienic condition. Other method merchants deploy is ammonia is mixed with water and the water is freezed  to preserve the fish which is again dangerous. 

  Now coming to 'Formalin' - it is a cancer inducing chemical used illegally to preserve fish. Formalin may be injected deep into the fish so unless you cut deep into the flesh you will not know the smell of the chemical. In many cases on Government hospitals Formalin is used to preserve human bodies in mortuaries. Regular intake of formalin even in small proportions just increases the chances of Cancer. There are plenty of articles in the internet which helps us to detect presence of Formalin in the fish but I don't want to do fire fighting with the merchants rather I want to go back and choose wisely on what fish to buy. It has been almost a year now and I stopped buying Vanjarams (though I consume in events and Restaurants since it is beyond my control). I am buying local varieties now and these are caught locally and sold the same day. Blood splashes when they cut it in front of my eyes. On the down side it takes ever to take away the thorns from the fish and if you have toddlers then you are running a bigger risk of burning your Sunday afternoon doing nothing but removing thorns. 

So it is simple, ask yourself "Is point of sale far away from place of catch"; If answer is Yes stop buying Vanjarams rather buy local available fish. In other words make a switch from the modern classic to local Dappan kuthu !! 

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