Lapas!!

This weekend I got an email from someone I didn't know, who knew I was Portuguese...  I often wonder how these people find me, but, at the same time I was flattered--don't ask me why.. 

Anyway, this stranger, who goes by the last name of Pimentel asked me if I knew the correct translation for "lapas" in English.  I was at first stumped.  Like many languages, we all have our own form of "slang".  I am not quite sure if the word "lapas" for example is the correct word to describe the shellfish in the first place, but one look in Google, and mystery was solved.  Lapas in Portuguese means "limpets".  Is Lapas a "correct" Portuguese word?  I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that I've always heard it used throughout my life.

"Lapas" is a VERY popular seafood in the Azores.  I remember many a summer spent under the sunshine amid the volcanic rocks of my mother's native Terceira.  There my parents, aunt, and uncle, and cousins would gather the lapas from the rocks and feast on them.  I for one have never tasted a lapa.  The thought of something still alive wiggling in my mouth frightened me, as it still does today.  According to relatives, I'm really "missing out", but, oh well, I was enjoying soaking myself in the clear and warm ocean instead.  Damn I miss those summers so much!  Never mind the stinking limpets---what I would do to just be able to sit on a rock and let my toes wiggle in the sea of Terceira...  Sigh...