Make no mistake about it, calamari is squid. If calamari were the Italian name for salmon or pizza or chocolate ice cream, there would be nothing too unusual about a group of 284 people bent on eating calamari once a month. But calamari is squid, and squid has an image problem.

Just ask Dave “The Big Squid” Pickering. Pickering loves the 10-armed sea critters, at least in the culinary sense.

When he opened up Jasmine’s restaurant in Orono three years ago, he thought he would introduce his love to Eastern Maine.

Few of his customers inquired about the calamari item on the menu, however, and fewer still ordered it after they found out it was squid.

Reluctantly, Pickering took calamari off his menu. For two years, he simmered: how could he convince Mainers — who willingly swallow clams, lobster and even the occasional sea urchin — to try squid?

When a friend suggested that Jasmine’s organize a Calamari Club, Pickering wrapped his tentacles around the idea and refused to let go. By last December, Pickering’s idea of the Calamari Club had evolved from a shapeless blob into a shapeless blob with legs:

Once a month, Jasmine’s would serve fresh calamari.

Customers who ordered it would automatically become members of the Calamari Club. On their third calamari meal they would receive a free glass of wine; on their fifth, he would give them garlic bread; on their seventh, they would get a free “Calamari Crazy” T-shirt; their meal would be half price the ninth visit, and two-for-one on the 11th.

On the 12 day of calamari, the true lovers of squid would get their Calamari Gold Card, entitling them to a 10 percent discount (one arm’s worth!) on all future calamari meals at Jasmine’s.

With that kind of incentive, and a little clubbing of family members, Pickering rounded up about a dozen Calamari Club members for the first meeting in January.

And here is the shocking part: THEY LIKED IT.

It turns out — and I will vouch for this — that squid tastes good. The slimy skin and the squishy innards never make it to the plate. All that is left is a rich, white meat with a mild flavor, and just a touch of a tangy aftertaste.

The body of the squid — the part that looks like an outrageous conehead — is sliced up into delicate little rings of meat, which are then scattered about on a bed of noodles with pesto sauce or marinara or whatever delicacy The Big Squid has whomped up for the evening.

For those of you with overactive imaginations and underactive curiosity, be forewarned: with every dozen or so innocent looking rings there is also one set of legs, clearly identifiable as they poke out from underneath a tomato. They are only an inch long, but they do resemble miniature props from “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”

Some people have no problem with that. “It’s very Italian, it has a nice texture — just eating the tentacles, there’s a good feeling about it,” Pickering says.

Word of that good feeling spread so quickly that Blanca Wales-Pickering (who insists she did not know her husband was A Big Squid when she married Dave) had to take her Calamari Club membership lists off the wall and put them into a book — there simply was not enough space on the walls.

By August, 284 people had joined the Calamari Club, about a quarter of whom show up on any given month. Pickering now orders 40 pounds of squid each month, which is shipped up from Newport, R.I., and other squid-loving ports to the south.

“It’s a crazy idea,” Pickering admits. “It’s crazy enough that it’s working.”

“Once a month we’ve taken our slowest night and made it one of our busiest. I think the big difference is that now we have a clientele that trusts what I do,” he says.

They know, for instance, that what Pickering cooks will be top-notch Italian cuisine. They know that it won’t be what they had last month — Pickering has served calamari in 15 different ways so far, with no repeats. But they also know that he will not get carried away.

“I’m not going to be doing calamari and peanut butter with a green Gorgonzola sauce or anything like that,” Pickering promises.

But it is more than just the food that keeps the multitudes checking their calamari calendars.

Take the squidophiles at the long table in Jasmine’s front room. These are a dozen of the Calamari Club veterans, some of them with enough tenure to get their T-shirts. For them, the club has as much to do with celebration as cephalopods.

“Calamari has to go with a culture,” says Elisa Deal of Old Town. “Italians eat it with spirit and fun. It’s social.”

With Elisa, it could be little else. She and her husband, Ken, lived in Italy for several years, and serve as advisers to the table, as well as calamari cheerleaders. “I say that they should have it once a week. It’s great in the winter, you know, when you get a little depressed,” she says.

“We’re from the Midwest, so this is the last thing we expected to eat,” says Dick Neubauer of Orono. His wife, Fran, is also a convert: “I was expecting not to like it, and I like it.” They both earned their T-shirts this month.

Chuck Russ sits with this gang, but you would never mistake him for a Calamari Clubber. He’s more like W.C. Fields at a child’s birthday party. Pickering has not forgotten him, however.

For Russ and other timid spouses of Calamari Club members, The Big Squid has formed the Chicken Calamari Club, a rival group oblivious to the wonders of mollusks.

After their seventh official club meal, when their spouses get T-shirts depicting a brightly colored squid, Pickering rewards Chicken Calamari Club members with a rubber chicken.