WotD: (common) ling

[muckefuck]

1. der Leng(fisch)
2. de leng
3. la maruca
4. la llengua de bacallà
5. la lingue (blanche)
6. an langa
7. y honos
8. molwa (pospolita)
10. 魣鱈 xùxuě

Notes: This is a word which brought me up short in O'Flaherty today. Generally, context or, in a pinch, my Dictionary of Hiberno-English suffices, but all I could tell from the sentence was that it was some sort of foodstuff and Dolan had nothing. It was the Old Man who put me on the right track by saying, "Isn't it a kind of cod?" It isn't but it's a fish (or rather a genus of them) of the same order which is apparently similar enough to be a common substitute. According to Wikipedia, in fact, it's the preferred species for lutefisk. Since it's a North Atlantic food fish, it's surprising enough that there's a Chinese name for it. (My sources are insufficient to determine what they'd be labeled in Japan or Korea.)

Comments

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

I have not seen this type of fish sold here, although we have lots of varieties of seafood not normally seen in the US.

Chuck

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

The Catalan name is only a guess, since my sources disagreed. (Some called it peix de fonera, others label this a completely different species.)

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on how seafood is named. Even in the US there are different names used on the West and East coast for the same or very similar fish. Here I have to first translate the name to English and then use Wikipedia to find out the name used in California.

A particular bad example is langostino. This is, of course, a Spanish word with different meanings in different areas. In the US, it is commonly used in the restaurants to refer to "squat lobster", which is neither a true lobster nor a prawn. It is more closely related to porcelain crabs and hermit crabs. Langostinos are not langoustes (spiny lobsters) despite a similar name. In Spanish, lobster is called langosta, but here Atlantic lobster is labeled as bogavante. Also, langostinos are sometimes confused with langoustines (Norway lobster), which is a true lobster common in European cuisine.

In the US, the FDA 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.

Needless to say, when you go to a fish market here there are a number of "lobster-looking" crustaceans of differing sizes and different names. And then there is the problem that many are labelled in Spanish, but if they are local, in Catalan. Sometimes if the seafood is caught in a particular town it will have a special name. I have no idea if they are a different species or just marketing.

Chuck

[tyrannio.livejournal.com]

I had been confusing it with the lingcod, which is neither a ling nor a cod.

Is it possible the Chinese name originates from overseas Chinese in, say, NYC?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"Lingcod" is what monshu actually came out with, which isn't surprising given that it's a Pacific food fish.

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

I ate this fish in Sweden. It tasted like kind of a cross between cod and sole.