An internet pal pointed me to this kind of bizarre tale about squid. Well, it’s not about squid per se, but they are in the story. That reminded me of two rather bizarre tales of my own about squid, or cephalopds in general.
The first, and lamest, was when I was working in Guadalajara, Mexico. Now, Guadalajara is REAL Mexico. It’s not a metropolitan city like Mexico City. It’s not a US border stop like Tijuana. Guadalajara is in the heart of Mexico and they don’t care about the rest of the world. When in Guadalajara, you do as Guadalajara does. ( I love the sound of saying gwah-duh-luh-hah-ruh, it should be in The South US ). I had to work there for a bit and don’t know the first word of Spanish. I went with a co-worker who is, shall we suggest, redneck as heck. All he wanted was US burgers and fries. I don’t do that when I travel, I try to eat local. So, we ditched the co-worker and snuck off literally behind a building and found this little outdoor restaurant that only made home-cooking. I told the girls to order me something "local". What I got was this tall glass with what looked like bloody mary in it, with all these tentacles climbing out the side of it. I inquired the name, and it was something to the effect of "cóctel de pulpo". Now, when you pronounce that with a true southern Kentucky accent, it comes out "cock dee poopoo". I honestly could not pronounce that without busting out laughing every time. Now, the girls were so sure that I would not eat the cock dee poopoo that they placed a bet between us. I devoured that cock dee poopoo and actually ordered seconds and thirds. It was the first time I had eaten freshly steamed octopus and I loved it. I did not expect them to truly deliver on losing the bet. They did not have to run around the retaurant topless shouting "I love cock dee poopoo!"
A couple of years later I hooked with some of the nicest and most enjoyable people I have ever met on the ‘net. He’s Indonesian and she’s Romanian, married and living in San Francisco. I had just married and we were looking for something to do. We decided to traverse the middle to southern parts of California, hooking up with them and other friends in San Francisco. ( That is a tale in itself ). Being as it has been at least 20 years since I had been to the Bay Area, I told my friend to pick the fine dining for us. He took us, of course, to a very trendy oriental restaurant ( help me –H, was it Indonesian? ). They of course, fixed the finest of cephalopod cuisine, squid balls. Now, I had never had squid balls before. And, this is where it gets really bad, I didn’t even know squid had balls. Not only do they have balls, they’re pretty dang big. For those of you who have eaten mountain oysters, squid balls put them to shame.
Amazing what you learn if you just eat local food.
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