Sheldon wrote:
> In italy they use canned clams, there are no live clams (quahogs) in
> those waters...

In Italy we have "vongole veraci" (Ruditapes decussatus), they grow
everywhere around the coastline (especially around Naples, Taranto and
Venice). In English they are called "carpet-shell clams".
I never saw canned clams being sold in Italian markets. Elaborating a
bit about that, in reality it is strictly forbidden to sell dead clams
in fish markets (and when cooking 'em, it is a general norm that if you
get some dead clam, you would have to throw that away), while it is
possible to find freezed clams in malls and big supermarkets (but in
Italy the freezed ones are usually coming from Vietnam and Philippine,
the local produce is almost totally sold fresh and alive).
Whelks are instead called "lumache di mare" (sea snails), while I doubt
you could find anything called as scungilli in Italy, I never heard of
those, if someone could explain me what are they supposed to be in
Italian, that would be great.

Last but not least, there are also "cozze" (that is, mussels), about
which there is an interesting idiom (in Italian, with a sexist and
really offensive remark, ugly girls or woman are called cozze, hinting
at which could be their only useful use; "sei una cozza", you are a
mussel, is one of the most offensive calling you could use against a
girl).

--
ale
http://www.sen.it