When Charles Draghi was growing up in 1970s Connecticut, his father liked to return home from work carrying a bag of squid, which he called calamari. It was dinner as usual for this Italian-American family. Most New Englanders had another use for squid: striper bait.
This eight-armed cephalopod has crawled up the food chain. It’s on many restaurant menus. Even sports bars sell fried calamari, which has a wide and ardent following, whether paired with hot peppers, garlic aioli, or just a generous squeeze of lemon. Draghi particularly enjoys working with the small, slippery creature at his restaurant, Erbaluce in Bay Village, where squid might be sauteed and served with a Sicilian garnish.
Squid was once unwelcome on the tables of fussy diners and now is sought after. Carl Fantasia, who runs New Deal Fish Market in Cambridge, attributes it to TV cooking shows and the ubiquity of fried calamari on menus. Fantasia says customers who used to point at squid and holler “disgusting!’’ now hunt it down for a paella recipe.
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