<p>This essay addresses a less visible cultural dimension of dried fish production in the Indian Sundarbans. Dried fish production, a sector and subsistence that has received limited attention in research except those focusing on its nutritional and economic importance, is predominantly anchored in the values of collective activities and protracted associations between the community and local ecologies. We aim to address this gap with an approach of ‘new’ cultural geography allowing us to explore the case of dried fish that makes sense of historically embedded, ecologically constituted cultural ties and practices of relations, materiality and beliefs shaping the performances and interactions of heterogenous group of actors. The study draws on the ethnographic fieldwork in Sagar Island, a prominent fish drying site in the Indian Sundarbans, to reveal the nature of what is ‘cultural’ in the context of dried fish production through noting practices, methods, species, tools, conventions, meanings, observances, and relations of various sorts accompanying catching and processing fish. Such ‘small things’ contribute seamlessly to creating narrative of a distinctive way of life and shape the perception of fishers and fish processors in the Indian Sundarbans. This work asserts the significance of what is ‘place-based’ ‘customary’ or ‘ordinary’ imparting cultural values to dried fish, given the corrosive ‘development’ trends in fisheries governance threatening the social-ecological realities today. Simultaneously, it intends to take the interdisciplinary realm of fisheries and cultural geography scholarship to a more grounded approach that may allow identifying what generates disvalues in the sector and highlighting responsible ways to protect the ‘cultural life’ of dried fish.</p>