CIDARIDiE. 
175 
Italian Recipe. — Fry them in oil. ' They cook them 
thus at a small village on the Riviera^ not far from 
Savona, and they taste like skate. 
In France, Octopus vulgaris is highly prized for bait, 
and is also considered very good as food ; and in ^Life in 
Normandy,^ vol. i., is the following recipe for cooking 
it 
A dish of cuttlefish is divided in the centre by a 
slice of toast; on one side of the toast is a mass of 
cuttle-fish stewed with a white sauce; and on the other 
a pile of them beautifully fried, of a clear even colour, 
without the slightest appearance of grease. The flour 
of haricot-bean, very finely ground, and which is as good 
as breadcrumbs, is added. 
Weymouth Recipe for Cooking common Cuttle or 
^ Scuttle.'* — Cut off the head and feelers, and take out 
the white bone ; then boil for a short time till tender, ^ — • 
generally ten minutes or so will suffice. It is said to 
taste like lobster. 
Alexis, in his ^Wicked Woman,’ introduces a cook, 
saying: — 
‘‘Now these three cuttle-fish I have just bought 
Nor one small drachma ; and when I have cut off 
Their feelers and their fins, I then shall boil them, 
And cutting up the main part of their meat 
Into small dice, and rubbing in some salt 
(After the guests already are set down), 
I then shall put them in the frying-pan. 
And serve up hot towards the end of supper.”'* 
Major Byng Hall mentions the cuttle-fish (Calamares) 
as one of the great treats of the natives of Madrid. f 
* Athenaeus, vol. ii. bk. vii. c. 124. f ‘ Queen’s Messenger,’ p. 341. 
