Shrimp and Prawns

The terms “shrimp” and “prawn” are used almost interchangeably. Americans primarily use the word “shrimp” for large and small crustaceans in the Penaeidae and Pandalidae families. Elsewhere in the world, “prawn” usually describes a smaller creature. In America, shrimp were harvested mostly in the South, where they were more abundant than in the North, and so appear with greater frequency in older Southern cookbooks. In the North, canned shrimp from states on the Gulf of Mexico became available after the 1870s.