Lau Pa Sat is a hawker center in the middle of downtown Singapore — a single-story space surrounded by glass towers that rise so high they seem to lean inward. The lights never go off. The heat is not from the food but from the air itself, thick and humid, the kind that makes you unsure where the sweat ends and the steam begins. My husband and I stood there trying to decide, knowing that whatever we chose, we could not have it all.'

As the sun went down, the vendors outside along Satay Street set up their fires. Smoke filled the air. The lights came on. People began to gather and the lines formed quickly — every stall announcing itself as the best satay, the longest lines collecting at the loudest claims. I don't like standing in long lines. I scanned for the shortest one, reasoning that shorter means faster, not necessarily worse.

But what pulled me toward one particular stall had nothing to do with the line. It was the smell. Before I saw what was on the grill, I knew. Ojingeo (오징어) — squid. A whole squid, end on end, on a bamboo stick, charcoal-grilled. I moved closer to confirm what my nose had already told me. Everyone else was standing in a very long line at the best satay stall. I was the only person standing at the squid one — the only one who had recognized it before seeing it.

I was so happy I must have looked strange.

Squid has been with me my whole life. Growing up, I loved mareun-ojingeo (마른 오징어) — dried squid, the kind you bought at the bus terminal before a long journey. You put it on the portable gas stove, watched it curl up over the flame, the edges catching slightly. I used to get motion sickness on long bus trips. Chewing dried squid helped — the saltiness, the chewiness, something to hold onto while the road moved.

I loved it so much that at some point as a child I announced, quite seriously, that I was going to marry a squid catcher. The reasoning, in my young mind, was simple: I could eat squid endlessly, as much as I wanted, forever. I'm not sure who I told this to — my parents, probably, or anyone who would listen.

At home, squid always made it to the table. Dried, grilled over the flame, eaten with mayonnaise or gochujang. Or soaked briefly in water and microwaved — a different texture, slightly thicker, softer. My father's favorite. Ojingeo-muchim (오징어 무침), tossed in gochujang sauce, bright and spicy. And the version I loved most: ojingeo hwedeopbap (오징어 회덮밥) — raw squid, sliced thin, mixed with gochujang and sesame oil over rice. That one only worked fresh, right by the sea, on the east coast of Korea. The squid had to be caught that day. That version was everything.

It is harder to find now. Squid was overfished — the same pattern as myeongtae, the national fish that now arrives mostly imported. What was once everywhere and cheap has become scarce and expensive. Living abroad makes it harder still. I used to bring dried squid back from Korea in my luggage, wrapped carefully. Grilling it at home meant watching the smoke alarm, cracking a window, timing it so the smell dissipated before it became a problem. The smell that meant comfort and home had become something to manage.

So finding it in Singapore felt like running into someone I had been missing for years.

I ate the whole thing. I could have eaten another.

The squid I usually encounter in Europe is small — calamari, the kind that arrives as rings in a small bowl at a bar, battered and fried. A different creature: smaller, thinner, milder. Probably a different species entirely. Nothing wrong with it. But it is not the ojingeo I grew up with, and I had stopped expecting to find that version here.

Then at a restaurant near the water at the southern tip of Spain, a large whole squid arrived on a plate — charcoal-grilled, scored across the body, served with roasted vegetables alongside. Not the dried version from childhood. Not the raw version from the east coast. But the size of it, the smoke, the char — something in that combination stopped me mid-conversation.

I could smell it before I saw it. That has always been enough.