Banana prawn

There is an Australian expression of calling someone stupid as being a prawn, or even worse a raw prawn.

"

I was made to feel a complete prawn shortly after arriving in Australia.
I was living in a small flat in south Brisbane before Jean and the family came to Australia and my neighbour was a young French man who worked for eight months of the year in the mines at mount isa and spent the other months in Brisbane spending his savings.

Just after Christmas we decided to go together to Surfers Paradise to see the new year in.

We went to one of the posh hotels for dinner as he offered to pay.

The starters were the usual thing but included "banana prawn salad"
My only previous experience of this type of starter was "prawn salad"  . Prawns served in a bowl with a bit of salad and covered in dressing.
I quite like sea food but served cold with pepper and lemon and I couldn't imagine what a banana prawn starter would be like.  Prawns with bananas?  Queensland was the "banana republic" after all so I thought they would have some strange combination that I wouldn't like.
Anyway there wasn't anything else that I fancied so I asked the waitress if I could have the prawns without the bananas.

Naturally she almost fell about laughing at the stupid prawn before explaining that Banana Prawns were a local prawn that were called that, she assumed, because they were sweet and were shaped like bananas.  Well I had already had a couple of glasses of wine so I did not take offence.  I didn't even point out that most prawns were shaped a bit like a banana.