The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word CALAMARI
I've seen this crossword clue in Independent
C
A
L
A
M
A
R
I
More clues leading to the result CALAMARI
- A clam cooked with mostly dry seafood
- Mother runs into French port, mostly for squid
- Swimmers trapped in Ocala marina
- Seafood containing a bit of arm buried in the middle
- To be zoological, a marine constituent?
- Dish of shellfish acquiring a central Paris following
- Damage in French port reduced such seafood
- Much the same as 2, caught malaria travelling
- Squid caught malaria at sea!
- Seafood dish as mum would make, in cooking really inspirational starters
Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "seafood (?although seafood is also part of the wordplay)" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case seafood (?although seafood is also part of the wordplay) = calamari.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does CALAMARI mean?
CALAMARI noun- Squid as food, especially cooked in the form of calamari rings
- Squid, the mollusk, in general