Try a New Food Tuesday: A Teaspoon of Puff Pastry Makes the Squid Go Down

Let me preface this by saying that we love calamari. I mean pink-bloated-hearts-and-rainbows-shooting-out-of-our-eyes LOVE calamari. Extra crispy with marinara or even just a squirt of lemon makes us drool and vibrate. Dried and shredded squid can't be that different, right? It's not deep-fried in a batter of southern goodness and sin...but it is the same animal. It's not like trying dried elephant just because I like frog legs.

Wrong.

So, so very wrong.

Exhibit A:
I'm assuming the characters down the side say something like "if you don't want to vomit in the back of your mouth, do not attempt to eat this. Dried, shredded squid should be reserved for reality show contestants and sadists only." And you know they can fit all of that into 3 characters because that's how they roll in Taiwan. (As I noticed today, there is an exorbitant amount of food packaging in the commissary that is not in English. Five years of French is doing nothing for me right now.)

The ingredient list is simple: squid (yeah, got that from the very first whiff), sugar (really?? No need to be stingy with the sugar, Orchids.), salt, and MSG sorbic acid lactose (yes, that is all one ingredient).

The smell is simple, too: fishy.

After getting busted on my last Try a New Food Tuesday, I've decided to devote a little more time and research (in the form of a quick Wikipedia search) to the food I'm taste-testing.

Dried, shredded squid is a seasoned snack that is most commonly found in Asian countries and Hawaii. True, this stuff was everywhere in Honolulu. More than once it prompted the idea of a Fear Factor Hawaii while we were visiting Princess Pomtini. It is also referred to as sun-dried squid and cuttlefish. This MSG-laden snack was most often consumed in Japan, as an accompaniment to alcohol (hey, beer nuts are not for everyone) until someone decided the English didn't know what they were missing. I would have to say that this would go down much more smoothly if there was beer (or vodka) involved.




Neal thinks so, too.


Anticipating a lingering fishy taste, I decided that we would need something to wash this down with, so I picked up these.

While I am reserving the full description for next Tuesday, let's just say they are layers of puff pastry, shaped like a pretzel. YUMSTERS!

I now realize that I need to devise a rating scale for Tuesdays. Surferwife has margaritas, Salt has an unrevealed rating scale for her new recipe blog...I should follow suit. While I think on it, I will simply say that if you like beef jerky with an aroma of Pacific Ocean, this could be the snack for you. If not, add sake and try again.