This live crustacean is called astice in Italian. The one on the right is aragosta
They look very different from one another. The Italian dictionary describes the astice as having a deep (intense) blue colour (turchino) with yellow splotches and large claws, whereas the aragosta has a reddish body, five pairs of legs, long antennae and an incredibly hard shell that covers its body and head. To me it looks like a giant insect. In English, however, they are both called lobster and if you eat lobster in either a British or an American restaurant, they will often present you with an astice. An article in the London Evening Standard clearly shows the restaurateur (an Italian!) with two large ‘astices’ in his hands. :))
I don't care which species they give me, frankly they're both delicious, but if I were to invite an Italian friend to a Boston restaurant and order lobster for both of us, she might be dismayed at seeing an astice on her plate.
The Italian term astice is derived from astakós; Greek for prawn or lobster (which one exactly seems to be quite ambiguous). Astakos is the name of a Greek fishing bay.
The Online Etymological Dictionary says (emphasis mine)
lobster (n.) marine shellfish, Old English loppestre "lobster, locust," corruption of Latin locusta, lucusta "lobster, locust," by influence of Old English loppe "spider," a variant of lobbe. The ending of Old English loppestre is the fem. agent noun suffix (as in Baxter, Webster; see -ster), which approximated the Latin sound. [. . .] OED says the Latin word originally meant "lobster or some similar crustacean, the application to the locust being suggested by the resemblance in shape." Locusta in the sense "lobster" also appears in French (langouste now "crawfish, crayfish," but in Old French "lobster" and "locust;" a 13c. psalter has God giving over the crops of Egypt to the langoustes) and Old Cornish (legast).
Questions
- Why is there only one term in English for these two different species?
- To me the Boston "black" lobster (astice) looks more like a scarab beetle or a crab than a locust. How did this crustacean get its English name?
- If I wanted to order aragosta in an English speaking restaurant, what should I ask for?
images: Così cucino io; Alimentipedia and The Food Almanac