More trivia from Larousse Gastronomique

[chickenfeet]

Apparently the oursin or sea urchin is also known in some places as the "sea hedgehog".

Comments

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

I'd be really happy about that piece of data if it weren't for the source.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

So? "urchin"="hedgehog" anyway, from "oursin", and only got applied to scruffy kids recently. It's dying out in English dialects but is still around in some, and it's the ones that use it that gave rise to "sea urchin", the rest using the pure English "sea hedgehog" (I don't think I've ever actually come across "sea hedgepig" but that would be another possibility).

I'm just surprised that you're surprised!

[unblinkered.livejournal.com]

Yup, in German sea urchin = Seeigel = sea hedgehog. Makes a lot more sense to me, and is probably the reason I have difficulty remembering the English term.