food for thought | squid

On Monday I went out for lunch and chose a squid salad because Will was nowhere in sight.  Had he been around, he would have cringed, pulled faces and made disgruntled remarks about how gross it was - and I wouldn't have enjoyed my yummy meal at all.   Yet as I sat at that WholeFoods table alone, with Will's repulsion in my mind's eye, I started wondering if people around me were having similarly disgusted reactions and felt very self-conscious.  Many people are grossed out by squid tentacles and as I became increasingly paranoid, I subtly glanced around to ensure no one was dry-reaching or holding their noses and pointing at me!    

It seems funny now, in the comfort of home, but it is quite a self-conscious scenario.  Australians and Americas alike are not the most polite when it comes to food etiquette: happy to openly reject something new, without trying it, and more than happy to belittle the eater!  I would have felt just as under-the-spotlight if I had suddenly reacted on a compulsion to strip down to my jocks and start dancing on the table!  As it was, I sat there trying to take big mouth fulls - desperately trying to avoid that dreaded tentacle-sticking-out-of-mouth scenario!  And I wished I had my very confident, very loud Greek friend beside me, eating her own squid salad and name-calling the haters!  Most European countries eat squid without flinching and it seems silly to care about the opinions of others... 

Eventually I did feel foolish and cursed Will for making me feel so paranoid about my choice in lunch.  I looked down at my delicious meal with the squishy, chewy texture I love so much and considered a world in which I cared so much about what others thought that I never ate squid again!  Nope - not worth it.  Sure, it has tentacles, which feel weird on your tongue.  Sure it's rubbery and takes a little work to break down... but to me it's worth it because the trade off is the taste of the very ocean!  Meaty, salty goodness: so high in protein, so low in anything bad!

My name is Lena.  And I lurve squid.  Deal with it. 

In its raw form: squid (purple, with tentacles) and
calamari (white tubes without tentacles)