Chris eats squid in ink sauce.

Hey everybody!  Let me start today with a bold proclamation: this is going to my favorite blog ever.  Now, I certainly don’t have the hubris to say that my writing will be particularly good.  It will be funny in a lukewarm sort of way and rife with grammatical errors like it always is.  However, I had more fun researching today’s entry than any other post I’ve done for this site.  Apparently, I entered the perfect combination of unrelated words into my search engine and I can’t wait to show you what I stumbled upon.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!  Please, friends, strap yourselves in and get ready to learn way too much about…

Squid in Ink Sauce!

Typical...

It has been three full months since last I sampled some gross-looking food for your amusement, my dear readers.  It looks like that streak is about to come to an end.  Today’s taste test began like all the others…while walking around in my local Whole Foods looking for stuff that might make me dry heave.  Let me tell you, folks…no marginally-popular-blogger-with-an-infrequently-recurring-food-testing-feature worth his or her salt would pass up a can of squid in ink sauce!  It’s irresistible!  But before we crack the lid and dig in, let’s learn a little something about the fascinating sea beast I’m about to put in my tummy tum tum!

A squid in the wild.

Squid are terrifying alien creatures that would sooner eat your face than look at you.  Unlike their cousin, the cuddly octopus, squid have 10 arms (the standard 8 limbs plus 2 long tentacles to drag sailors to the murky depths of the sea to be consumed, body and soul).  Squid possess something called salivary papilla.  Oh, you haven’t heard of salivary papilla?  Let me fill you in, dummy!  You know that little mouth that shoots out of the alien in Alien?  Bingo!  Salivary papilla is a toothy extension of the squid’s tongue that it uses to drill into shell and bone.  Also, squid ACTUALLY SECRETE ACID FROM THEIR MOUTHS, so…yeah.

This is to scale.

Squid do not socialize with other squid.  They generally keep to themselves and make fiendish plans with their unnervingly large brains.  Squid are the Unabombers of the ocean.  They also get around like underwater Blue Angels.  Squid have built in jets that propel water out their butts fast enough that squid can travel 25 mph in deep water.  And guess what…they can grow to be big.  Really, really big.  The Colossal Squid has been estimated to reach 46 feet long.  Its eyes are 16 inches across (like an extra-large pizza).  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the skin of a squid is covered in chromatophores which change color faster than any land animal.  Squid are better chameleons than chameleons are.  Watch this.  Seriously...watch this.

Alright, I’m about to tell you a story that begins with me researching this article and ends with a Japanese sex doll.  While I was bouncing around websites I remembered a podcast I heard a few months ago about octopi (not quite squid but close enough).  I suggest you give it a listen…it’s really good.  Anyhow, the affable hosts describe something called the Pillow Octopus.  This stuck in my mind because the male Pillow Octopus is a few centimeters long and the female Pillow Octopus is 40,000 times that size.  AND THEY STILL GET IT ON!!!  That’s like an average sized man getting down and dirty with a woman 4 times the size of The Statue of Liberty!  If you’re wondering about the logistics of this sinful act, the male Pillow Octopus holds its sperm in one of its tiny little arms, BREAKS THAT ARM OFF ITS BODY and gives it to the female to get the job done.  Nature!

Now, that’s some interesting stuff and I wanted to find a cool picture to post of the Pillow Octopus for your enjoyment at home.  Being the naïve young lad that I am, I typed “pillow octopus” into Google image search and was simply astounded by what I found.  As it turns out, there is an “octopus pillow” on the market from Japan that is meant to be voraciously humped by lonely women.  To give you a glimpse behind the curtain here at Internuts Headquarters, I actually spit coffee out of my mouth when I found this.  AND IT GETS BETTER!  The manufacturers of this plush, pink invertebrate (you’d think they’d want it to have a bone…ZING!) were nice enough to offer their own selling points.  The following is transcribed EXACTLY as I found it…

Have you ever envied your friends for owning so lovely a toy pillow? We are so excited to recommend you such bracelet. This toy pillow is perfect for pretend play, nap time, lounging and kids room decor. Surely your friends will envy you the other way round on condition that you home such a toy pillow by yourself.

Wait...

Many girls like toys, so boyfriend often buy some animal toys for their girlfriend. If you are worried what you should buy for you girlfriend, come on! We will introduce this octopus pillow to you. This octopus pillow will be your best choice for you. When your girlfriend received the stuffed octopus toy, she will feel you are always with her. She will never be afraid on a dark night because your octopus pillow will be her good fellow, it will always stay with her. These plush stuffed animals feature super cozy material, touches soft and comfortable. Of course you can decorate your room with it! Wherever you are at home, office or car, it will be a good accessory for your room. Your family also likes it.

Wait...what?!?

You guys, I’ve been reading and re-reading those two paragraphs all day.  I’m considering having them both chiseled on my tombstone.  I hope you find that as funny as I do because bringing this octopus pillow to the attention of a wider audience has become my new goal in life.

What were we talking about?  Ahh, squid in ink sauce!  At this point, I’m only barely paying attention to the food I’m supposed to eat.  Eating squid doesn’t really phase me.  I’ve had calamari plenty of times and I’ve eaten squid at sushi bars before.  What really got be riled up was the ink.  Squid ink is composed primarily of melanin (which gives it the dark color) and mucus.  That’s gross.  In the wild the squid will squirt a large cloud of ink as a “smokescreen” to confuse predators.  They will also produce smaller, denser globules of ink to act as decoys.  This behavior is way too smart for an invisible monster with acid saliva!

Seriously?

I pop the top of my tin of squid and take a sniff.  It smells fishy.  This is to be expected, I suppose.  The squid is broken into smallish chunks but the overall appearance is disconcerting.  The ink is black and oily.  I spear a particularly succulent looking hunk of squid and give it a taste.  Well, it’s pretty good!  The color is very off-putting but it tastes like any other piece of squid.  A little rubbery but pleasant enough.  There is a bunch of salt in the ink sauce (probably as a preservative) but it takes the edge off nicely.  I would not hesitate to try squid in ink sauce again but I might close my eyes while I do it.

Try to not think of this when you go to sleep tonight!

Alrighty, Internuts!  That brings us to the conclusion of today’s installment.  I hope you learned a little something about squid.  I hope you learned a lot about Japanese hump octopi.  I am still hard at work on The Top Secret Internuts Project and will unveil it as soon as possible.  Until then, I’ll try to be more diligent about putting out a new blog post each week.  Until next time!