Dancing With the Cephalopods

Some people like their calamari breaded and fried, while others prefer it grilled or sauteed. In northern Japan, the traditional preparation is à la Fred Astaire.



Our intrepid gourmand explains:

A seafood bowl I ate in Hakodate in Hokkaido, Japan. It had salmon roe and seaweed and some other things, with the highlight being the "dancing" squid on top.

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I added some information in a reply comment but it's now buried somewhere. The basic idea behind the sodium in the soy sauce causing the legs to move has been covered in the comments, but there's still some question as to whether or not it's officially "dead" at the time of serving. The brain is probably still in the body, but a significant part of its nervous system, the giant axon, I believe extends into the mantle, which has been cut. I'm not an expert on squids so I can't really come to a definite conclusion about that. As you can see in the beginning, it's not moving at all when it's brought out so I assume that signals around the body have stopped, whereas a fresh intact squid out of water would constantly move around. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's "dead" but it seems to me that it's at least incapacitated.

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