The reality is that you’re unlikely to find pomfrets in these medium to large sizes where you can really savour their buttery-soft flesh that comes so cleanly off the central bone. So much of the joy of pomfret comes from its texture, which flakes beautifully, with no pin bones. Other meaty fish, like tuna or grouper, can become very firm when cooked, but pomfret remains tender. That is why one name for it is butterfish.

Most often these days one must settle for small fish, really only fit for being sliced and cooked in a curry. It is always good, yet lacks the joy of eating larger fish. Patra-ni-macchi, the Parsi speciality of pomfret steamed with green chutney in a banana leaf is a particularly good way to savour its delicately flavoured flesh, but these days, you’re more likely to get a lot of chutney and little fish — or find it has been substituted with basa.

Soaring prices and smaller sizes both stem from the chronic overfishing of pomfret off Maharashtra’s coasts. This has reduced catches, but also increased demand for whatever can be found. Fishermen search ever more desperately for pomfret, and catch the smaller juveniles. Yet catching juveniles reduces the numbers that will grow to adulthood and spawn prolifically, further pushing pomfret populations into a downward spiral.

This is what makes the recent initiative to name silver pomfret Maharashtra’s state fish so interesting. Naming state mascots is usually a pleasantly meaningless gesture, but in this case, there is the practical aim of helping preserve the fish. The initiative was suggested by fishermen’s organisations which are bearing the brunt of declining stocks, yet their inability to control overfishing is a primary cause.

This is not a new problem. Around 2007, Dr VD Deshmukh of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute shared a paper with me that he had authored with SG Raje, on trends in the catch of key fish like pomfret and bombil [Bombay Duck] near Mumbai. Fishing statistics can be confusing, since part of the catch can go unrecorded, if done by small boats that don’t unload at the wharfs where records are taken, or by big trawlers from different states or even different countries. Fish stocks can also suddenly rebound temporarily and offer a false sense of hope.

Nonetheless, Dr Deshmukh’s paper showed clearly declining trends, which he attributed to powerful trawlers which could fish deeper and longer, and the use of small mesh monofilament nets which caught juveniles, which had earlier escaped through the larger mesh of traditional nets. Dr Deshmukh also suggested that traditionally Christian fishermen observed informal bans on fishing during Lent and Hindu fishermen during Shravan, which happened to coincide with the times when juveniles were growing rapidly. With the growth of new customers for whom these traditions didn’t matter, fishing began to take place around the year, with predictable results.

This is the wider reason for the problem. Fishermen along the Konkan have always sought pomfret, but as one prized fish among many. Local communities knew the value of consuming a diversity of fish, varying with the season. On a daily basis, most people ate small bony fish, whose taste compensated for the lack of flesh. Large fish like pomfret, surmai and rawas were consumed for celebrations, or sold to cities where there was a clear, but not excessive demand for them.

The British valued pomfret. “The greatest pleasure in Bombay was eating a fish called ‘pomfret’,” wrote the Saturday Review in 1874 (as quoted in Hobson-Jobson). In his ‘Culinary Jottings for Madras’, Colonel Kenney-Herbert lists several different ways of serving it: with caper sauce, with parsley sauce, a la Normande, a la Provencale, aux fines herbes and more. Parsis steamed it in banana leaves, Konkani Muslims stuffed it with prawns and some chefs served a dish called Standing Pomfret where its flattened shape was used to startling effect, with the firm fried fish propped up to glare at the diners about to eat it.

Mumbaikars might imagine that pomfret is particular to the city, but in fact, it is widely consumed, and esteemed across Asia — as zubaidi, it is much sought-after in the Arabian peninsula, as mangatsuo, it is valued by the Japanese to eat raw, in sashimi, as well as fried, in tempura. In Alan Davidson’s 1977 book, Seafood of Southeast Asia, he passes on a tip from a Thai marine biologist to always eat “the soft lower fin and tail, which are particularly delicious.”

What this means for the silver pomfret in Maharashtra is that fishermen started discovering there was a valuable export market – and restaurateurs discovered there were other sources, like Bangladesh, to make up for the declining Konkan catch.

This really kicked in with the boom in seafood restaurants in the 1990s, like Trishna, Ankur, Excellensea and Mahesh Lunch Home which installed tandoors that produced perfectly grilled pomfrets. New consumers were created who didn’t want to deal with diverse fish, especially small bony kinds, but wanted easy-to-eat kinds, like pomfret. It was ideal fish for these new consumers, since it was low on bones and ‘fishy’ tastes, but had cleanly flaking flesh that could adapt to any flavourings.

Demand from these new consumers really drove overfishing of pomfret, and it could undermine any efforts to save the fish now. Fishing curbs do help with stocks, as is shown by the regular monsoon shutdown, but was demonstrated even more effectively with the Covid lockdown. Immediately after, when boats finally went to sea, crews reported bumper crops of black pomfret. The experience of cod fisheries in the North Atlantic, where complete closures for several years have helped stocks recover shows that curbs can work.

But could it happen if consumer demand for pomfret continues unchecked? Fishermen will see it as unfair if restaurants continue supplying pomfret from imported stocks. Many will be tempted to break the ban and supply it quietly to restaurants who, if asked, will pass off locally caught fish as foreign. Only a really holistic solution will work with silver pomfret, with curbs on restaurant consumption and consumers being encouraged to try other fish.

Maharashtra doesn’t have to look far to see how this could work. Pomfret is caught in Goa, but that state has never been obsessed with it. It is consumed along with a diversity of other fishes, which helps create an overall healthy fishery. There are threats to this now, as tourist demand for just a few types of fish threatens to trigger overfishing, and the state has started importing more from other fisheries. But Goa still retains awareness of the value of a diverse fishery and it would be good if the state could signal a path for pomfret in Maharashtra, rather than following the latter state down a dead end.

Vikram Doctor is a Goa-based journalist who writes about food and its place in Indian culture. His interest lies in food sustainability and how it is threatened by the loss of diversity in our cooking.