It was first mentioned in Pilgrims, one of the first ever compilations of travel literature put together by Purchase in 1613. The record is of large numbers of squid escaping from cod. Not much later (in 1620) John Mason who was Governor of Newfoundland wrote a book about his experience there. In a section about the variety of fish, he has a long list of fish. This included squid to which he actually makes a comment. It was “a rare kind of fish … squirting matter like ink”. This behaviour allows the squid to escape – the black cloud confuses the enemy and prevents the squid from being attacked.
As the world’s largest invertebrate, a few specimens have exceeded the 10 metre mark. With their size, they can and do eat anything they can get hold of, even whales. So it is no surprise that Goldman Sachs was compared to a squid by Matt Taibbi in his famous article for the Rolling Stone magazine in 2009 where he wrote, “the world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity”.
On the other hand, there are some good uses for the squid. The black liquid was used for ink, but now it is used almost exclusively in Italian cooking, to make black pasta or sauces.
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