Every now and then I realise that there is a LOT of English words the meaning of which I only know sort-of, guessed from books or picked up from whoknowswhere. And then there are entire categories that the organic memory banks have just completely misfiled, if at all.
Take scallops. I suppose I sort of would have connected them to seafood. Which is correct. Even though I still have no idea how they differ from mussels, seashells, snails, oysters, clams, cockles, barnacles. I suppose I could mostly tell the difference between an octopus and a squid and a jellyfish. Not a clue about what a lobster is when compared to a langustine, crab, softshell, shrimp, prawn, crayfish, krill. Despite Andrew form Bizarre Foods (our newest dinnertime entertainment, follows a bunch of coffee-themed and aviation stuff, plus the regulars, of course) doing his best to educate the pagans.
But in the mysterious case of the scallops, what really threw me, is that they have zero connection to scallions and shallops, both of which are a type of onion. Not very seafoody. Facepalm much.
And then, of course, one needs to start distinguishing between those two, green onions, chives of many types, leeks etc. I was tempted to say that it'd be easier and clearer to stick to Latin, until I just now opened the Allium wiki page.
Oh, and a method of cooking tender meat also has a "scall..." sounding name, completely can't recall that one at the moment.
Cheers,
Hedi
