Squid update
It may indeed be significantly cheaper to buy them whole and clean them oneself, but it is not worth it. Not that cleaning them is particularly difficult; it's just that it's kind of gross. And one must clean many a squid in order to get enough to form a nontrivial part of a meal.
The process can be broken down into about four steps, the order of which isn't too important so long as the first listed does indeed come first and the last last. First, you pull the body-and-tentacles component out of the hood, hopefully getting the stiff cartilage thing that gives the hood a bit of structural integrity along with it, but if not no matter. Then, you cut the head, eyes, ink sac, etc away from the beak and tentacles right above the beak, and squeeze the beak out. Third, you get everything still inside the hood out of the hood by hook or by crook. Finally, you remove the spotty outer membraneous layer from the hood.
The first two steps are really easy and not even gross. The third can be kind of disgusting, since the innards are extremely unpalatable in color and texture*. It's the fourth, though, that really takes it. That shit is hard to get off efficiently; it sticks to your fingers; it's slimy; and all sorts of other bad things. Eventually I figured out that if you take the side fins off the membrane generally comes along with it in one or two pieces, but not always, and before that, yuck.
On the brighter side, it turns out that cobblers are extremely easy to make and totally delicious, and that, shockingly, I like blueberries. For years I've thought otherwise. Over a decade. It's really quite a blow to my practical identity, especially coming so close to my imam biyaldi-related revelations concerning eggplant.
*Actually it just occurred to me that it doesn't entirely disresemble semen visually. Well, let it never be said that I find semen particularly palatable (visually).
Comments
on 2007-08-15 2:10:21.0, bitchphd commented:
I told you to buy the cleaned ones.
and, further, on 2007-08-19 10:32:06.0, Jonathan commented:
Haven't you ever used them for bait?
and, further, on 2007-08-19 10:46:46.0, ben wolfson commented:
I've been fishing—for trout—maybe ten times in my life.
and, further, on 2007-08-20 13:41:34.0, The Modesto Kid commented:
(Note that "fishing for trout" has, as one pronounces it, the exact same stress structure as "stripping for cash".)