Exporting South African calamari isn’t news. It’s been happening for years. What is news is the price — calamari has become the seafood equivalent of a Louis Vuitton handbag. Order it now and you’ll be gently asked to mortgage your house before they bring the tartar sauce.
In the 1970s, we just called it chokka. You could buy it on the pier, fresh, glistening, and still doing a mild samba in the bucket. These days, order “calamari” in a restaurant and you might get something that looks like chokka, smells like chokka, but chews like a yoga mat.
Of course, not everyone minds. Some folks eat their calamari rings and sigh with joy — bless them. They’re the same people who think “Catch of the Day” means someone actually caught it that day.
If you do find calamari under R100 in 2025, be suspicious — there’s definitely a catch. It might have come halfway around the world, been tenderised in an industrial drum, and passed through more hands than a counterfeit Rolex.
There’s one place I know that serves calamari for a decent price — tastes good too. But halfway through, somewhere around ring number four, you suddenly realise that pure white centre doesn’t come from Jeffreys Bay. It’s been on a long journey from “somewhere or another in Asia,” and by then, the illusion is shattered.
As for the good stuff — the local chokka — you’ll find it on a plate in Spain, Italy, or Greece, where it’s served with reverence and olive oil. Meanwhile, back home, it’s elbows-out at the Simon’s Town jetty when the chokka season starts. Everyone desperately trying to catch the remaining three chokka left in False Bay.
The Crab Stick Con
While we’re here, let’s talk about those red-and-white impostors — crab sticks.
I was at a wine tasting recently, and someone brought out a platter of them. There was digging and diving and enthusiastic munching — until I looked closer. Crab sticks! That most underwhelming of marine inventions.
If you’ve ever wondered why they taste vaguely of something, it’s because they contain nothing. No crab, no sea breeze, no mystery. Just fish paste with a dream and a dye job. They’re the soap opera actors of the seafood world — all colour, no depth.
Made mostly from surimi — a polite Japanese term for “minced fish that’s been through therapy” — crab sticks are what happens when marketing gets loose in the food lab. Add a little starch, a few flavourants, and voilà: seafood for people who don’t like seafood.
To their credit, crab sticks do have one virtue: they make other fake foods look honest.
So next time you’re staring down a plate of calamari, ask yourself:
Was it caught by a fisherman off the Eastern Cape… or assembled by a factory worker with a glue gun in Guangdong?
Either way, chew carefully — and don’t let them catch you.
