Rieslingfest - The sea monster

This is what I had been waiting for all night - the sea creature. I've never handled octopus before - never, but I've always had this fascination with all those tentacles and suction cups, and general repulsiveness of the animal. I wasn't able to find a fresh octopus - fresh meaning unfrozen, not live. We do see unfrozen octopus (octopuses? octopi?) Unless I lived on a boat and had the nerve to dive down for these suckers, dead and frozen is as good as it gets.

Look how repulsive it looks. Flash frozen from Chile, the package is in block form, with all the tentacles neatly tucked into the ice. Once defrosted, you see that the creature is remarkably well-shaped and intact - nothing is damaged in the freezing process, and there doesn't seem to be any shrinkage. I'm playing with its beak in the bottom photo, not the anus. Octopus don't have anuses. At least I don't think so. Took a good 5 hours to defrost, continually running under cold water, for the creature to be ready to cook.

DF