Squid (Calamari)
Squid come in all sizes, but the most familiar of them are the small ones from the Gulf that restaurants (particularly Italian ones) serve as calamari. These are almost always deep-fried and served with some kind of tomato-based sauce--either in the direction of cocktail sauce or spaghetti sauce, depending on the place. Sometimes you see it with a Creole mustard-and-mayonnaise sauce, or even a butter sauce.
What you can count on absolutely is that the customers of any restaurant serving fried calamari will claim that those are the best in the city or maybe the world.
A few qualities separate good squid from not-so-good squid. The first is how well it's been cleaned. There are two tricks, neither of which is performed consistently. Squid needs to have the "pen" (a stiff sliver of cartilage), the ink sacs, and the little beak (one of which bit me once!) out of there.
Second, some squids are stuffed with eggs, and in places that serve squid as a specialty you might get one of those. They're a treat. Drago's--in the days when they prepared squid so many ways that they actually has a squid platter--was famous for serving that kind of gravid squid.
If the squid is fried, lightness is the key. Calamari get really tough when overcooked. (The texture is somewhat chewy to begin with.) I like to get not only the rings (the body cut crosswise) but the tentacles (which a friend once aptly described as "fried spiders").
Squid is also excellent poached and then marinated in olive oil and herbs to make a cold antipasto, either with or without a salad underneath.
And then you have the wide range of dishes combining squid with rice or pasta. Seafood risotto or cioppino are a couple of those, but the best are those dishes in which the sauce is built using the squid's ink. This is done throughout the Mediterranean, particularly in Span and Italy. You get a plate of dark-gray rice or pasta with the squid scattered through it. That's my favorite way to eat the beast.
Larger squid (and they can get so large that they can actually battle a sperm whale to the death) are also served here and there, but you usually don't realize it. Large sections of the body wall of large squid can be grilled. Every sushi bar has that same kind of squid, usually in a combo sushi plate. (It's the very white stuff with the firm texture whose sides are usually fluted with a knife.) Like all such things, it's cooked a bit first. Nevertheless, I find it very tough and flavorless. I always check to make sure that's not what's coming. That isn't the local squid, anyway.
