Dave's Mindscape: Tales of a Dissatisfied Squid Salesman

This one is a bit long.
Squid On A StickTMCo.*

Bringing you squid the way you like it...cooked... and on a stick. Squid On A Sticktm - coated in a batter with the Captain's secret recipe of 13 herbs and spices. S.O.A.S.Co is now shipping Squid On A StickTM in two formats: - The handy 1Kg box , ready for retailing, and - the rather cumbersome 7 tonne shipping container, suitable for large seafood chains and places that force their customers to eat squid.

Don't forget to order your Squid Deep Fryertm ........................$ N/A Cdn.
Attention: Boycott Squid On A Stick. Join the Blue Ribbon Campaign to stop fish battering. brought to you by Computer Hackers For Fish.

Mission Statement To make a wad of money.
Mission Statement Rev. 2.01 To keep our heads above water, unlike the rest of the Canadian fishing industries, while employing a lot of Canadian squid jigging persons of no specific gender and being fairly environmentally responsible in so much as you can't get around a lot of those infernal government regulations.

The Environment Here at S.O.A.S.C we believe that, until someone comes up with a better alternative, the environment is necessary and we might as well protect it. With that in mind, we go out of our way to make sure that our 1Kg boxes are made out of cardboard that can be recycled and our 7 tonne shipping containers can be reused for... well more squid or a granny suite in your back yard. Even the ropes used in our squid nets is made of hemp, a natural plant which yields more fibre per acre than trees. Our squid fisher persons report that they are much happier with the return of hemp.

Our CEO speaks out in favour of preserving some of the "old growth forest" in Temagami. "We should preserve some of the old growth forest in Temagami 'cause when we do catch the giant squid were going to need one heck of a big stick." editors note: a physical speciman of a giant squid 55 feet long has been captured and fed to the dogs and in the 1930's a reliable witness reported a squid the length of his 175 foot ship.

Pricing Due to the great fluctuation in squid availability and therefore a large variance in cost, we base our price to you on the International Squid Exchange in St. John's NFLD. Our policy is to sell the freshest frozen squid possible and still make a wad of money. Also, to keep costs down, we buy only Canadian wheat for our batter, from the European Black Market. The EBM has met our needs with prices including shipping consistently lower than our own Canadian sources. Squid On A Stick Wholesale Prices for November 1996 1Kg retail box (minimum order 10,000) N/A.** 7 tonne shipping container minimum order 1 N/A.** **shipping & handling, tax, license, radio and white wall tires extra. American currency accepted at par. SOLD OUT

A History of the Company Squid On A StickTMCo. is like the Phoenix, rising from the ashes of our founder and CEO Allen's first company The Sushi Deep Fryer Co.* Here is a quote from Allen at his first meeting of creditors " Who knew people wanted to eat raw fish ".
Allen now has a new motto, "Maybe a little market research isn't such a bad idea!".
Our CEO was able to stave off the creditors with some last minute financing. Allen raised the cash to re-position The Sushi Deep Fryer as an ordinary deep fryer by mortgaging a building.
The deal almost fell through when the owner of the building returned from holidays. Fortunately the owner of the building, Jim, was a restaurateur with a problem. The restaurateur would become a silent partner and not press charges if Allen could solve the problem of squid being just too ugly to eat. Our silent partner Jim, had mistakenly ordered 20 tonnes of squid instead of shrimp for his specialty "Jimbo Shrimp" which sells like hotcakes, and the supplier would not take them back. Jim tried every thing. He dimmed the lights in the restaurant, he covered the squid in sauces, he offered free shrimp if the people would eat the squid, he tried to entice the kids to eat squid by dressing up in the Ronnie McSquidtm costume. It didn't work. Horrified people ran screaming from the restaurant. Kids too.
The refrigeration cost to keep the remaining 19.83 tonnes of squid from spoiling were putting Jim in the red. Allen offered to teach Jim how to mortgage or sell other people's properties but Jim being big on ethics decided they should concentrate on marketing the squid.
Allen began his market research. While in a local park doing community service ( of his own volition he contends ) he noticed that people will eat just about anything on a stick: lolly pops, ice cream, whistle dogs, candy floss, hors d'erves well you get the picture. Why not squid? It would have to be deep fried, necessitating the purchase of his newly developed Squid Deep Fryertm .
Ever safety minded, and prompted by some pending law suits, Allen took a cue from Pete over at a company that makes frozen flavoured water on a stick. Allen's original stick was round and the design lent itself to being twirled between the hands.

(fig. 3)

taken from the prosecuting attorney's missing files.

Allen came up with a splatter guard, similar to the clear plastic face masks worn by hockey players, for customers to wear. His partner, who thought the patrons looked silly enough wearing those bibs with the lobsters on them, vetoed the idea.
Allen went to plan B, a flat stick which was unlikely to be twirled. A fly in the ointment ( or a bug in the batter so to speak ) Covering the squid with batter and deep frying, while effectively disguising them, created an unappetizing lump. The unappetizing part was one of the problems Jim had been trying to overcome. Allen came up with the idea of spreading out the legs before coating the squid and then flash freezing them in this splayed out position. When deep fried, the legs did not stick together and left one with food, on a stick, covered in a light crispy batter, that didn't remind one of it's revolting origin unlike un-battered squid on a stick. Allen and his silent partner have gone on to offer Squid On A Sticktm not only to restaurants and institutions but now to the general public through selected grocery chains.