The squid We eat them stuffedGrilled, in stews, and also Roman stylecut into rings. Yes that's how it is, the beloved and missed Juli Soler He recommended pairing them with beer, because he believed it was the best combination. In Madrid, battered calamari is eaten between two slices of bread, without tomato, of course. It's the famous calamari sandwich, which has often become an attraction for tourists and visitors, and not so much for the locals. Madrid, as a radial capital that claims to receive fish three hours after it arrives at the ports of the Cantabrian Sea and the Mediterranean, has elevated a seafood product, calamari, to a popular and iconic dish. Now, has anyone considered that a calamari sandwich can never cost three euros? Or four, for that matter. Squid, now that it's in season, has a high price tag, never going below twenty euros or more. And the same is true for the battered calamari tapas in Barcelona. If they're inexpensive, and the portion is generous, the restaurant owner would make very little profit on each serving. So, what's really behind a plate of calamari?

He little cry, as the raor fish is popularly known (Xyrichtys novacula), has gone from being an unknown fish to arousing passion in season, which is right now in Catalonia, and also in August. "When we started working with it, more than fifteen years ago, no one knew it and we had to explain what it was like," recalls Pere Monje, director of the Via Veneto restaurant in Barcelona, who features it on the menu these days. "They come to us directly from the Maresme region, and the supplier, who fishes for them with a line, tells us daily how many he has," Monje continues. The day we interviewed Pere Monje and the chef David Andrés There was half a kilo. And what a half kilo! At the market, a kilo of parrots It can cost around sixty or more euros.