Shrimp(s) and prawns

William Salmon william.salmon at YALE.EDU
Wed Mar 11 04:54:20 UTC 2009


>> Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>> I, raised and still living east of the Hudson, disagree.  I see both
>>> words on menus, and understand "prawns" as larger.  "Prawn"
>>> particularly appears on menus of East Asian restaurants.  (They might
>>> all be "shrimp" in the supermarket bags, regardless of count; I
>>> haven't examined that aspect closely, preferring to have others
>>> cook for me.)

I've missed a lot of this thread, so don't know if this has been
mentioned yet... Anyway, I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Texas, where we
referred to the saltwater variety as 'shrimp' and the freshwater
variety, which were larger, as 'prawns'. I don't recall many people
eating prawns there, and I don't like them nearly as much as I do Gulf
shrimp. The river and lake prawns are quite bland and lack that good
muddy taste of Gulf shrimp :-)

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