Dad and my brother went fishing… no surprise. Would it be salmon or halibut for dinner? Neither, as it turned out. When the phone rang, it was Dad, calling from his Ham radio.
“Call your Japanese friend. We’re bringing home an octopus.”
Dad had caught and released the leggy creature, but when David caught the same one ten minutes later, it was either release it so it could eat more bait or take it home.
Our new eight-legged experience filled the utility sink, its body and tentacles seeking their own level like a viscous liquid. We all took a turn at pulling the suction cups away from the sink. Pop! Pop! Pop-op-op! By the time Mariya, my Japanese friend arrived, I was having second thoughts about whether I wanted to put that thing in my mouth. Her scream upon seeing the octopus made me even more nervous. Apparently she had never seen a whole, live octopus before. She had always bought chopped up parts in the supermarket.
Our expert was useless as a butcher.
“How do we kill it?”
“We can’t drown it.”
“Maybe we should cut off its head. But wouldn’t it still be alive?”
Luckily, we had a book on how to prepare octopus.
Don’t ask.
“Remove the beak then turn the head inside out,” the book said. Somewhere in that process we think it died. We pulled the stretchy skin off the legs, sliced them up and delivered them to Mariya who was waiting inside at a safe distance from the carnage.
She expertly turned the octopus into a bowl of indigestible rubbery disks.
At least we got a bottle of ink out of the deal.
3 comments:
why have I never heard this story before???
I remember this one well. It was like trying to peel and chew thick bungee cords. All the way from catchin' to cookon' it took enormous effort and it wasn't worth any of the effort. An old boot would have had more flavor. However, it occasion provided a wonderful afternoon of merriment and memories that have lasted for years.
This would fit into the "only in Juneau" category. Love it.
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