A Brief History of a Problematic Appetizer (it’s squid) | Hacker News Reader

A Brief History of a Problematic Appetizer (it’s squid)

nytimes.com

32 pointsKaibeezy10 comments

Today I learned that according to NY Times: "That all changed in 1974, when a business school student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Paul Kalikstein came up with an idea. American consumers would probably get over squid’s texture if, as with onion rings, chefs breaded and fried it."

Odd, I thought that fried calamari was a lot older than that.

Not according to Google Ngrams for "fried calamari":

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fried+calamari...

Apparently "fried squid" had risen in the couple of decades prior -- maybe this was the non-breaded version?

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fried+squid&ye...

Of course, I'd have to assume it had been breaded and fried somewhere previously. But wherever it had been, doesn't seem to have been the origin for its rise in America.

According to the article, the problematic aspect of this is not the squid but the exploitative labor that often goes into catching and preparing it.

Exactly. There is a moral issue against eating cephalopods (as opposed to other mollusks like oysters or clams) based on their higher cognition (on par with many mammals by some standards), but this is a different issue than the fact that forced labor may be involved as well.

AFAICT the argument against eating cephalopods really only makes sense for octopus. Squid, cuttlefish, etc. don't exhibit the same kinds of cognitive abilities. I presume this is because of the difference in needs and uses of the appendages.

there's also a population control argument, as oceans warm up squid are like an ultra-preditor and may just go into population acceleration. they'll eat nearly anything, are good at catching it and when desperate will eat eachother. as they get higher in the water column they'll get even more to compete with.

https://archive.ph/A8ZoR

More reporting on this subject by the same organization, the Outlaw Ocean Project, about the prevalence of forced labor, including Uyghur and North Korean laborers, in squid fishing.

These are longer form articles that go into far more depth than The NY Times piece.

https://www.theoutlawocean.com/investigations/china-the-supe...

The book is also interesting.

I have no interest in squid rings (especially after prepping many hundreds of pounds of frozen squid), but squid tentacles are awesome when grilled.

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