Snail Salad vs. May breakfast etc.

[Towse]

RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>
> In a message dated 1/28/03 3:34:54 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:
>
> >    Do I have to waste my time comparing and contrasting "snail salad" with
> > "lexicon inflator"?
> >
> There is a difference between SNAIL SALAD on the one hand and "stuffies ...
> New York System ...   ... May breakfast ... doughboys ... johnnycake and
> cabinet." These items are all opaque. Their meaning is not apparent from the
> sum of the parts of each. Dictionaries are less inclined to consider
> compounds as worthwshile entries if they are opaque and highly productive.
> Probably few people outside the South eat collard salad, but that doesn't
> mean that COLLARD SALAD is a regionalism.
>
> The fact that somebody in 1987 said that people in Rhode Island eat snail
> salad doesn't make the eating of snails regional, nor does it make SNAIL
> SALAD regional. Anywhere that people eat snails and meat salad they doubtless
> eat snail salad. This includes Hollywood, which is a right far piece from
> Rhode Island.
>
> I hope David Barnhardt is outtside playing with his children in the coastal
> New Yorrk snow. He is a good guy and I'm sorry folks seem to think he is
> lost. Maybe he went to Chicago to eat snail salad with all the Italians who
> settled there. Or to New Orleans to eat snail salad with the French.

According to the second reference I cited earlier ([ref:
<http://www.manandmollusc.net/molluscan_food_files/molluscan_food_conchl.html>]),
the "snail" in the RI "snail salad" is actually whelk or conch,
not those tasty little gastropods that leave slime trails in the
garden.

FWIW, I find both RI and other eastern seaport areas offering
"scungilli salad", "scungilli" being the Italian name for the
whelk or conch.

Would calling the salad "snail salad" when it's really
whelk/conch/scungilli qualify as a regionalism?

And, oh yum. Popping /scungilli recipe/ into my search engine of
choice brings up conch fritter recipes as well as scungilli alla
Sorrentina, scungilli marinara, ...

Sal
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