SC - Calamari, squid, cuttlefish

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 19:42:17 EST
> From: LrdRas at aol.com
> Subject: SC - Calamari, squid, cuttlefish

> Squid has longer tentacles and a paper thin clear internal shell. I t can grow
> to gargantuan proportions although commercial squid are relatively small.
> Cuttlefish have short tentacles and contain an inner shell that is very hard
> and calcified (e.g. see the cuttle bones at the pet shop). To all intent and
> purposes , they are interchangable in the majority of recipes, SFAIK. Finding
> cuttlefish in American markets is almost next to impossible.
> 
> Ras

I think there's some kinda taxonomy action going on. Yes, the critters
that end up as fried calamari, etc., are different animals from
cuttlefish, but all cuttlefish are squid, IIRC, but not all squid are
cuttlefish. Cuttlefish also live in somewhat different environments
(depth, etc.) from your average little calamari squid, and swim with
their tentacles facing forward, using tail fins, rather than backward
with waterjet propulsion, as with loliga squid.

Taillevent includes a recipe for cuttlefish (# 143) in his section on
flat sea fish, which, oddly enough, also includes oysters, mussels, and
lobster. The dish is called seiche, IIRC, which is, I assume, simply
what the 14th-century Frenchman called cuttlefish. The fish is skinned
and broken up into pieces, which I gather means either cut with a knife,
or dismembered / torn apart by the tentacles. The pieces are fried in a
dry, ungreased frying pan without water, but with a generous coating of
salt in the pan (anyone who's pan-broiled a steak knows what that's all
about, I suspect). They're parcooked, i.e. until "done", stirred
frequently to prevent sticking and burning. The pieces are then wiped
dry, and presumably de-salted somewhat, on a cloth, coated with flour
(so far the only reference I've seen to coating fish before frying in
the entire French-English medieval recipe corpus) and fried in oil, with
onions added halfway through the frying of the cuttlefish, to keep them
from burning. The cuttlefish pieces and the onions slices, or whatever
form they take, are presumably drained from the oil and served with a
white garlic sauce made with vinegar. 

It actually sounds pretty good, but then I am a confirmed calamari and
cuttlefish fiend. So, oddly enough, is my six-year-old son. I can
occasionally get barbecued cuttlefish in the Chinese grocery, hanging up
alongside the ducks, the spare ribs, etc. I've also seen them fresh /
raw in the same markets, and, now that I think about it, have a dried
one in my fridge, which involves considerable soaking in baking soda and
water to render palatable, not unlike the legendary lutefisk.

Which reminds me: last night I encountered, in the Korean grocery just a
few blocks from my home, dried, split, Alaskan pollack. They appeared to
have been split, threaded on stocks, and hung up in a cold wind. Apart
from being rather small, maybe ten inches long, they looked like they
would make a decent lutefisk fish. They seemed, at first glance, rather
expensive ($4.89 for maybe 12 ounces) but then I understand such fish
are only about 1/4 of their original weight when dried, which would mean
more like $1.63 per pound, soaked. I'll probably need to experiment with
both a modern lutefisk recipe and some period stockfih recipes... .

Adamantius
troy at asan.com
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