Loligo forbesi; there's a name to make a body wonder. Who was Forbes? I can conjure up a mental picture of a Victorian gentleman, pottering about some seashore, buying curious marine trifles from fishermen sorting the catch beside their boat on the beach, to take back to his lodgings and pore over in the parlour to the discomfort of other guests and a disapproving landlady. More likely, he was probably a dour Scottish marine biologist, inured to the discomfort of collecting trips in the early days of the steam trawler, enduring many a cold weary day on deck in the pursuit of science. Whoever he was, his name was bestowed on this month's subject, to us the skeetik, to others the squid. His Shetland name obviously relates to propulsion, for squid and his cousins rely on water-jets for mobility. I like the Norwegian name for the beast, 'Blekksprutter' which derives from another talent, namely that of emitting a dense cloud of black inky fluid into the surrounding water when pursued. Forbesi is the common member of the clan in northern waters. Other forms are found all along the Eastern Atlantic, extending into the Mediterranean, some forty species in all, and, along with the octopus and cuttlefish, make up the family known as cephalopods. Their name derives from "head" and "foot" in Greek, and describes how the feet, or arms, of these creatures grow from the head. Don't jump to the immediate conclusion that such beasts have no brains as a result, for it is proven that squid and octopi are the brainiest of all molluscs. Compare the slug, for instance; he can hardly move, can't see, and isn't exactly intimidating when attacked. By contrast, the squid is so clever he has learnt to be active and swim, relying on speed and ink for protection instead of the heavy immobilising shell of his other marine cousins; with great eyes to spot his prey and tentacles to grasp and convey it to his beaky jaws. On top of all that, the squid is capable of changing body colour very quickly, like a chameleon, to blend in with his surroundings, both for attacking and defensive purposes.
With all these talents, you could be forgiven for asking how this marine genius ever gets caught, and I suppose the answer has to be that it doesn't happen very often. Squid in our waters tend to be an accidental by-catch in trawling operations. Only two weaknesses make him vulnerable. The first is the reproductive instinct, that brings together the animals in large shoals at the time for spawning in autumn. The second is an attraction for light. In combination, this leads to a dedicated fishery for squid in Mediterranean and Antarctic waters, where lights directed overside from a drifting boat attract the shoals that are then fished using automatic jigging machines that really just rikk the fish by accident rather than present a bait resembling prey, as is the case in most other jigging fisheries. This method has been tried round wir isles in the recent past, with negligible success, although there have been many recorded cases of shoals of squid coming about pier lights at night in Shetland harbours, with occasional beachings as well. There was a memorable squid fishery close to Rockall for a year or two in the last decade; I was fortunate to be on the Vega in August 1986 when she landed over 800 boxes of squid at Lochinver after only five days' fishing. That was probably the nearest to a dedicated fishery ever seen, for when the gear was working at its best only a few pilticks were found among the huge bags of squid that came up the ramp.
As seafood goes, the squid isn't very lovable to look at, and not much pleasure to prepare for cooking. Many people simply can't handle the animal because of its faintly sinister appearance with menacing eye and tentacles. There's no obvious belly to slit open, and the added obstacle of a hidden sac full of sticky black ink that is hellish to clean from even a hard surface, and impossible if you spill it on a carpet. Cleaning squid with a view to stuffing the body is not unlike the process of removing the guts from a hen, except you can only get one or two fingers in instead of most of a hand. The simplest way is to forgo stuffing and simply slit the body open, whereupon all the innards can be scraped away with the back of a knife. Once cleaned and skinned, there remains a flat sheet of muscle that can be separated into strips or sheets. I forgot to mention the quill, which to me is one of nature's supreme wonders. This object is all the skeleton a squid needs, and is found lodged in a long pocket of flesh in the upper side of the body. Its end is visible, and a steady outward pull reveals an elongated slender transparent spatula - for want of a better word - that seems at first sight to be man-made of plastic. It hardens as it dries, losing flexibility, but revealing a marvellously complex structure that gives the body of the animal the required support. Apart from the pleasure of observing this curiosity, there's not a lot to be said to encourage the novice to clean squid; far better to get your friendly fishmonger to do this for you, and in fact really enlightened fishmongers will do all this beforehand, and display only bodies and flat sheets, with tentacles available for the hardy souls, of which I am not one, who can dismiss infantile memories and fears of suckers and include these in the dish.
So, what have we got, when it comes to the cooking stage? We have, in fact, very dense sheets of muscle, with practically no fat, and little or none of the connective tissue that gives us flakes of muscle in true fishes, or the rods of muscle in for example scallop meat. There's a lot of water, some protein, and not much else. Raw squid meat is hard by comparison with raw fish, and here lies the difficulty in cooking squid, for cooking is merely a heating process whose object is to coagulate the proteins so that they harden and set. Hardening is the hazard here, for it is extremely easy to cook squid that resembles fishy india-rubber in one's mouth. The trick is not to overcook, but it's a lot easier to state that fact than to give advice on how to avoid this. Most of the innumerable recipes suggest adding the squid meat towards the end of the preparation of a dish, or, in the case or frying, to use a coating batter and a very short period in contact with hot fat. Temperature is critical, as is the quantity of squid to be cooked. At the other end of the time-scale is the slow-cooking method, just as you would use to tenderise a tough cut of meat. This long process of gentle heating will eventually dissolve the connective tissues and give a tender result, although the meat will be somewhat stringy as a consequence. My first encounter with squid cookery was on the Rockall trip I mentioned earlier. I offered to make a squid stew for supper one night. No problem, thinks I; rattle up the standard tomato-and-onion sauce, bung in the squid chunks for a minute or two, and dish her up. No problem indeed, until I sought onions, only to find not a single one left aboard. The only onions on the ship were combined with heaven kens what else in a couple of jars of sandwich spread, so our squid stew began with a very tomatoey sauce, in which the squid was poached for minute or two, whereupon the two jars of spread were coupit in to give the stew a little "body", and stirred around to hide the mayonnaise. All I can say in mitigation is that the crew ate every scrap without complaint. To compensate in some respects, here is my favourite way of preparing squid, in a manner that guarantees tenderness and justifies lots of onions to boot.
It comes originally from Italy, and is known as insalate di mare. Acquire two pounds of squid, cut in rings or thin strips. Heat about a quarter-pint of olive oil, and fry two large onions thinly sliced until transparent. During the frying, add half-a-dozen garlic cloves also sliced thinly, three bay leaves and half-a-teaspoon of black peppercorns and the same amount of dried thyme. Then add about six fluid ounces each of white wine, white wine vinegar and water. Simmer all this for twenty minutes, turn off the heat, add the squid and a dash of lemon juice and stir well. Cover the pot and leave to cool overnight, then transfer to the fridge. Leave it there at least one day before eating. This gives tender squid of good flavour, that can be eaten on its own or added to other dishes as a cooked ingredient, such as seafood curry or with pasta. Happy Eating!