Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Shrimp or Prawn?

Although there is a biological difference between shrimp and prawns, mostly distinguished by the gill structure, for practical and cooking purposes the terms are used relative to the size. The term prawn is generally used for any shrimp when the count is 15 or less per pound, anything smaller would fall under the shrimp category.

Terms can be confusing sometimes with shrimp, a recipe might call for jumbo, large, or medium and to me these are subjective terms whose meaning can vary depending on location, source and type of shrimp. I would prefer if the count per pound were used more often since it is clearer to the consumer what they are getting.

Common count ranges are, 36-40, 21-25, 10-15, and U-10's (under 10 per pound). All these number ranges refer to the approximate number of shrimp per pound and gives you a good estimate of how many shrimp you will have per serving, I just think this method is more useful and would like to see it used universally.

2 comments:

  1. Thank yu for clearing this up...appreciate it.

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