OT? [ADS-L] antedating scampi

[victor steinbok]

It depends what you mean by "original". Or perhaps by "is"... [waiting
for Rob Butters to complain in 1, 2, 3...]

But, essentially it may very well have been the term identifying thus
prepared prawns. Given that it supposedly correlates to a single
chef's preparation supposedly "brought over" to London from Venice, I
would not be surprised. Getting actual scampi from Europe to New York
would have been impossible in the 1920s and 1930s. I am not sure if it
were possible in London of the same period. I am more familiar with
the cooking techniques than the history of food transportation. But,
if not, the London and NYC chefs would have to do with what they could
find, which would have been any of a number of locally caught shrimp
and prawns or even small lobsters and langoustines ("rock lobsters").
So calling the dish "scampi" likely would have identified the
preparation rather than the protein source.

VS-)

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 9:05 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> So "scampi", in the original use, is basically
> Italian for "maître d'hôtel sauce"?  Except for
> the white wine, and the cooking.
>
> LH

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