Yuk!
sorry.
Er, I found it in harrap's

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Note added at 13 mins (2005-03-30 02:03:18 GMT)
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Don\'t know why it\'s the same but I would never eat them anyway (for all the tea in China)

Geoduck (pronounced gooeyduck) is a very large edible clam (quite
delicious, by the way). Since you need to distinguish between palourdes, prairies, and clams, and from the price and the fact that they are listed a la piece, I would surmise that "calms" are large; geoduck is a possibility. The other way to go is to call palourdes
cherrystones, and prairies little necks.

"Clam" as a French word is meaningless. Its meaning varies from one town to the next... In my opinion, the correct French equivalent to "clam" is "coque", meaning a smallish whitish bivalve.

I come from a part of the Canadian Maritimes where the "French" speak in French with English nouns.

Never, *ever* would you hear someone from that area use "clam" in French rather than the correct term (i.e. anything but "clam").

For "praire", use "quahog" (pronounced ko-hog -- don't ask, I don't know why).

re "praire ou palourde"
The Canadian (North American) quahog is huge and kidney-shaped. Two of them are a meal. It would be impossible to write "praire ou palourde" on a Canadian menu: everyone would order the quahog and the restaurant would lose money...

I imagine the variety the restaurant serves (Icelandic?, Pacific?, small-neck?) might be smaller than ours which could explain "praire ou palourde".


For "palourdes" (a smallish dark-blue clam), use "soft-shelled clam" or "steamer clam".

For "clam", use "clam". Its just as non-specific.


Or ask your client what he/she means by "clam". Better yet, get them to serve you a bucketfull of them.

All in the interest of linguistic-scientific research, of course...

;)

P.

Is the asker in Europe? According to the site below, 'clam' in French is the American clam introduced artificially into France... 'Palourde' seems to be the generic term for any clam (I'm looking at bilingual Canadian tin of 'whole baby clams'/'petites palourdes entières'. Might 'praire' be a 'giant clam'? I found one, but only one N. American recipe which included 'French praires'.
BTW Dusty's scallop isn't right, I think. Scallops have a totally different shell pattern from clams (according to the picture on my tin!)
I'm no expert on this, though...

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Note added at 12 hrs 49 mins (2005-03-30 14:39:25 GMT)
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whoops - just noticed the €, so we are obviously in Europe..! So unless the shellfish come from N.America (unlikely), I think specifically N.American names (e.g. quahog) should be avoided if possible, as they wouldn\'t mean anything to a European.

It seems odd, but I wonder if they might be referring to 'conventional' coquilles St Jacques, which are sometimes large enough to be sold 'each' --- so how about 'scallop'? At least, that might give you another word in the repertoire!

I think David is probably right with his 'American clam'

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Note added at 5 hrs 39 mins (2005-03-30 07:29:16 GMT)
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This ref. suggests prairie clam (aka warty Venus) [photo] and I\'ve found Manilla clam for palourde

http://www.hormel.com/kitchen/glossary.asp?id=33173&catitemi...

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Note added at 5 hrs 43 mins (2005-03-30 07:33:02 GMT)
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This led me via German to this ref. that seems to confirm exactly what a palourde is:

http://home.tallships.ca/dPTranslations/dPBayQuahogPh.html

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Note added at 5 hrs 45 mins (2005-03-30 07:35:32 GMT)
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This ref. lists all the types mentioned as distinct items:

http://www.fishroute.com/fructimar/products.htm

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Note added at 5 hrs 47 mins (2005-03-30 07:37:29 GMT)
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And finally, this references gives the 3 French terms with their Latin names:

http://www.portlarochelle.com/reglementation-peche-tailles.p...

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Note added at 1 day 18 hrs 13 mins (2005-03-31 20:03:51 GMT)
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As Alison has so sensibly pointed out, of course my initial scallop idea was way off the mark.

But I hope the various references above give a few clues as to European terminology in this field...