SC - Scungilli versus conch

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Source of information, please? In my early years as an 'Italian' professional
> cook the words were used interchangeably. Also the dictionary supports my
> view as noted below:
> 
> scun*gil*li (noun)
> 
> [Italian dialect (Neapolitan) scuncigli, plural of scunciglio conch]
> 
> First appeared 1945
> 
>  : conch used as food
> 
> Various quick flipping through assorted culinary dictionaries also say they
> are synonymous. Whelks are not mentioned as an alternative for 'scungilli' in
> any of those sources.

At the moment most of what I'm relying on is memory; half of my library,
roughly, is still inaccessible. However, A.J. McClane's "The
Encyclopedia of Fish Cookery" is one source that says conches are of the
family Strombidae, found both in the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea,
while whelks are of the family Buccinidae, found in European waters
including the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas. Scungilli, he says, is a
preparation, a family of dishes, made popular in Rome, which might make
the idea of a European native species more likely. He also says that
conch and whelk are sometimes used interchangably, but that scungilli is
classically made from knobbed whelks.

I suspect that in the USA, the dish is sometimes made with conches, but
that it may originally have been made with knobbed whelks, based on the
likelihood that in the USA, conch is perhaps more available, while in
Europe, whelks are.
 
It's somewhat significant, I think, to specify "knobbed" whelks: most
other whelks are smaller than the knobbed varieties and wouldn't make
very good scungilli a la marinara, being smaller, more tender, and less
aggressively flavored, which is why they tend to be eaten at places like
the British seaside, with butter and perhaps vinegar, in a manner rather
similar to the ways Americans tend to eat steamed soft-shelled clams.

Now, while this isn't the best documentation, I can only state that I've
known about this assertion that scungilli-is-made-from-knobbed-whelks
for many, many more years than I've owned or been acquainted with the
McClane book, so I must have read it somewhere else. I'll probably find
the references eventually.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com