This grilled octopus (ahtapot izgara in Turkish) was served generously seasoned with olive oil and oregano at Memedof in Bodrum. Owner Mehmet Çuhadar recommended it to us and we couldn’t resist. His advice was right on-this was the freshest, most tender octopus I had ever eaten. As we savored our meze, I was saddened to hear that my friend’s brother does not eat octopus because he respects their keen intelligence, a characteristic I didn’t even know they had. When I got home, I looked it up on Wikipedia, and, while I find octopus intelligence a bit disturbing, I would still eat those other 7 arms!

Update: Through the miracle of modern science (Stat Counter), I just saw that someone found this blog by googling “should we eat octopus intellegence?”. Terrifying.