There is a writing desk hidden inside the word calamari. The Greek kalamari descends from the Latin calamarius: a pen case. The ancients saw a writer’s whole kit in this creature; the bone a quill, the ink already supplied. The Mediterranean has known it since antiquity; it is the meze of Aegean tavernas, the evening smell of fishing towns. In Japan its name is ika 烏賊, and it is everywhere from sushi counters to yaki stands; the Japanese are among the world’s great eaters of squid.

Two sea cultures have praised the same animal in different languages for centuries, and they share the same problem: calamari tolerates neither hurry nor delay. A ring cooked a few seconds too long turns to rubber. This is exactly why the tempura technique is calamari’s best friend. Ice-cold batter and scalding oil seal the flesh so fast that the inside keeps its own softness; while the thin shell crackles, the ring yields like silk.

We fry the Mediterranean’s oldest meze in Edo’s four-hundred-year-old craft. To us it feels like two seas shaking hands: the ingredient from our waters, the technique from their streets.