Tag Archives: Limpets

My wife is of Portuguese descent, and she told me that in the Portuguese culture, the people from the old country eat limpets. They are snails, and are considered a delicacy in Portugal. However, you have to eat them live (otherwise they are poisonous). My question is…do the limpets feel any pain when people place them in their mouth, and eat them? I have been told that insects do feel pain when they are crushed/killed (although it is not the same type of pain that we humans experience due to the fact that human beings and insects have different body parts/organs/systems). I would imagine that mollusks (who are similar to insects) would feel pain when people chew on them, and eat them. Also, do mollusks and insects have blood (as we know it)?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Sincerely, Steve B.
Heterónimo…I showed my wife your response. She said her relatives were born in the Azores, and they call limpets: “lapas”. She also said that her relatives knew many people who supposedly became severely ill for eating them “dead”. As a matter of fact, many of the stores that sold them in Canadian Portguese neighborhoods stopped carrying them (due to the fact that a high percentage of the customers who bought them became ill). She also said that she never heard of the
word: “burries”. By chance are you from the “Continente” section of Portugual? She told me that in the “Continente”, they speak a dialect of Portuguese that is different from the one spoken in the Azores.

Thanks!

Cheers!

Sincerely, Steve B.