Post #527828 by Hakalugi on Mon, May 3, 2010 10:39 PM

On 2010-05-03 15:23, woofmutt wrote:
Some day, maybe twenty years from now by my guess, you will be able to use some kind of electronic dictionary/encyclopedia device to look up all sorts of odd facts and find answers to pert near every question that might cross our minds.

For now we're kinda stuck. If we were to wonder what "langostino lobster" might mean we'd have to hope to come in contact with a marine biologist or maybe a master chef. But I bet in a couple decades we will just use some sort of typewriter like device to input the words "langostino lobster" and we'd get a printout that might read something like...

*Langostino is a Spanish word with different meanings in different areas. In America, it is commonly used in the restaurant trade to refer to the meat of the squat lobster, which is neither a true lobster nor a prawn. It is more closely related to porcelain crabs and hermit crabs. Crustaceans labeled as langostino are no more than 3 inches (7.6 cm) long, and weigh no more than 7 ounces (200 g) . Langostinos are not langoustes (spiny lobsters) despite a similar name (in Spanish, lobster is called langosta). Also, langostinos are sometimes confused with langoustines (Norway lobster), which is a true lobster common in European cuisine.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration allows “langostino” as a market name for three species in the family Galatheidae: Cervimunida johni, Munida gregaria, and Pleuroncodes monodon. In Spain, it means some species of prawns. In Cuba and other Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands, the name langostino is also used to refer to crayfish. In South America, the name langostino is used to refer to red shrimp, Pleoticus muelleri, common in the mid-latitude Atlantic coast, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Uruguayan coast, to Argentine province of Chubut.*

Man, the future is gonna be so cool.

I can hardly wait.

So in the meantime, to summarize your above post (depending on your locale) a Langostino is either:

• squat lobster, (Galatheidae family) which is neither a true lobster nor a prawn.
• crayfish
• red shrimp
• some species of prawns