Eight legs

Modern take on a traditional dish, Ignicio, Barcelona Spain)

It is funny how people fear anything with more than 2 legs - spiders, krakens, centipedes, millipedes....octopus...rightly so, I guess; the more the legs, the more the ability to hurt you, right? But does that fear have to extend by becoming a fear or distaste for eating these? I have been told that tarantula is quite good, Kraken? who knows but I know for a fact that Octopus is SUB-LIME. When fresh and well cooked, it is firm and meaty. Agreed that those suckers can be slightly off putting but trust me, have a bite and you will see it doesn't bite back....har har.

Gato Negro, Santiago de Compostella (Spain)

The Galicians, those ancient fishermen with modern fame for their sea food, make one of the most famous octopus delicacies that I know of: Polbo á Feira/ Pulpo a la Gallega or Galician Octopus. Tis a traditional dish made with octopus boiled in a copper pot, then chopped and drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt and paprika, set in a wooden platter over boiled potatoes. The cooking is a bit laborious as the beast has to be dipped a few times in the boiling water ( to curl the tentacles), then boiled and then left in the hot water..I'd rather eat this dish in a restaurant, to be honest!

Meson David, Barcelona (Spain)

You are supposed to accompany this with a fresh young red but I have had it with a bowl of white wine and found it refreshingly light and wonderful. This dish is ideal for cold and blustery climes and once you get over your initial squeamishness about eating anything with suckers on it, you will be as in love with this dish as I am! Yum!

Obviously, there are many, many more eight legged recipes but I thought I would share one of my favourite ones with you :-) 

Here is a traditional recipe in a tea towel, that is ancient now:

Can you decipher the Spanish?

Unusual dumpling delight

Funny how most restaurants, be they Chinese, Japanese, Mexican or whichever, try to outdo each other in how similar their menus can be. I prefer to leave these restaurants to their faithful flock and try new places or dishes and follow Star Trek's vision, "to explore strange new (foods), to seek out new (dishes) and new (restaurants), to boldly go where no (cowardly) one has gone before. Oops, sorry Ye Trekkies but shhhhhh, I am a trekkie too so am allowed!

The above is a meatball dumpling which has been covered in glutinous rice and steamed. Absolutely delicious and definitely to be tried out at home.