What just crawled off my plate?

Koreans eat octopus as ubiquitously as Americans eat corn syrup.

octo-on-the-street

Americans offer corn syrup on the street corner as a refreshing drink. Koreans offer octopus on the street corner as a refreshing snack.

The octo-monger heats dried delectables over coals. As the octo-roma warmly wafts, the octo-monger neatly nips into a small snack bag a . . .

• Three-foot long leg of octopus?
• Small, fat cluster of octopus?
• Flattened sheet of octopus?
• Eight-legged, body-and-all, whole octopus?
• Thick round dried tentacle of octopus (the kind that sunk Nemo's Nautilus)?
  

Whichever you choose, strolling away, you contentedly munch on bites of smoky, chewy, sea flavor.

octo-lunch

Americans eat their lunch with corn syrup. Koreans eat their lunch with octopus.

In some cases, the octo-chef sautes and then serves the octo-lunch. If so, it goes like this.

Octo-chef reaches into the octo-tank, the glass walls covered with sticky tentacles. The octo-chef pries a wiggling writher and slips it quickly into bubbling chili paste. Not many seconds later, the octo-chef scissor-slices throughout the octo-stew and brings it to your table, tender, ready to mix with rice and lettuce and seaweed and onions and oh-so-delicious.

In other cases, the octo-chef just serves the octo-lunch. If so, it goes like this.

Octo-chef reaches into the octo-tank, the glass walls covered with sticky tentacles. The octo-chef pries a wiggling writher -- and meanwhile, at your table, salad is steaming on a stove. Atop the salad steaming on the stove, the octo-chef deposits the octopus. It crawls off. A daintily dressed diner plies her chopsticks to drag the tentacles to top the greens again. It crawls off. It sticks to the table. She plies again. It crawls again. She plies again. It crawls again. She's enjoying her lunch. Soon she'll eat it, too.

octo-appetizer
(not for the squeamish)

As all Americans know, sushi is raw fish and it's best without corn syrup. As all Koreans know, sushi is good food and it's best to start with octopus. Yes, the very best sushi-starter is octopus. Mmm, octo-appetizer.

And the very best octo-appetizer is living octopus. Crawling octopus. Squirming octopus.

You sit down at the sushi restaurant. The waiter brings the water. The waiter brings some beer. You eat some salad. You dip your ginger in soy sauce and in wasabi.

You're waiting for your appetizer.

The waiter brings a dish that's white and wiggly. Not the dish itself. The heap of squiggly. The pile of squirming, wirming tentacles. The mass of mouth-size, cut to pieces, living moving octopus.

You grab a tentacle with your chopsticks. The tentacle crawls away.

You grab a tentacle with your chopsticks. The tentacle suction-cups to the plate.

Your grab a tentacle with your chopsticks -- and the tentacle holds onto all the other tentacles!

You grab a tentacle with your chopsticks. The tentacle crawls away.

Koreans like live octopus as an appetizer. Live octopus is appetizing because it takes so long to eat. By the time you wrangle a wiggle to your waiting mouth, you're so hungry, it's so good.

So tender.
So tasty.
So squirmy.