Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

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For some reason, this is the kind of vocabulary that runs in one ear and out of the other like the tide – possibly because I’m not quite sure what the name for all those little shells is in English, let alone French. Here’s a crib sheet:

Coquillages – seafood

Moules – mussels

Huîtres – oysters (creuses are rock oysters, plates what we know as natives, the flatter, rounder shells that aficionados believe to boast a sweeter, more complex flavour than cheaper, pointier rocks)

Bulots – whelks

Bigorneaux – winkles

Coques – cockles (amande de mer is a common variety known in English as a dog cockle, though disappointingly it bears little resemblance to either a dog or an almond)

Crevettes – prawns (géante tigrée or gambas suggests the larger variety, crevette rose are average-sized North Atlantic prawns)

Crevette gris – shrimps

Langoustine – Dublin Bay prawn (like a little lobster)

Palourdes – clams

Couteaux – razor clams

Homard – lobster

Crabe tourteau – brown crab (sometimes just listed as tourteau)