Crawfish

[elenek]

I'm a little disappointed in you Dead Guy. You mention several distinctly Louisiana dishes and you fail to talk about the CRAWFISH!?!?!?!?!

For those of you who don't know, a crawfish is a small critter that looks a bit like a baby lobster. They live in the mud along the gulf coast. As kids we used to knock over the mounds and go crawfish hunting in the ditch because crawfish are good.

Crawfish is not just a food in Louisiana. They're really just an excuse to throw a party. People in Louisiana don't throw backyard bar-b-ques, they throw crawfish boils. During season, you can find them boiled during every major holiday, graduation, and birthday party. You go get about 60 lbs of live crawfish, a couple cases of beer, invite over a dozen friends and you are good.

Crawfish get boiled about thirty pounds at a time with Zatarans and lots of other seasonings in a large pot on one of those stand alone propane burners. They are not a very neat food to eat. You cover your tables in newspaper and, as you eat, you discard the shells into the center. Now you may or may not have heard the horror stories about people not form Louisiana eating crawfish for the first time. Peeling the tail and eating the meat is normal. But with Crawfish you also suck the head to get to the juice and fat there. For some reason out of towners just really seem to balk at this.

What you don't eat the day of the boil, you peel and save to later be cooked into tasty delights such as jambalaya, etoufee, crawfish bisque, crawfish pie, and any number of other dishes that make up the heart of Cajun cuisine.

[Dead Guy]

OK, yeah, you're right. But crawfish are a more regional thing. (Texans eat 'em too!) Plus, I thought everyone knew about crawfish.

I concidered doing a post on crawfish pie. I make them about once every two months. (you can't find Louisiana crawfish in Chicago, they're all Chinese) The pies last us about 15 minuts.

"You know you're from Louisiana if you're at a crawfish boil and your host says 'don't eat the dead ones' and you know what that means."
You know you're from South Louisiana if you know how many pounds of live crawfish to buy for each guest invited to the boil.

[elenek]

I'm the daughter of two New Orleans natives but grew up in South East Texas. Trust me, they only pretend to eat crawfish. Texans don't cook them the same way. They use the Zatarans but they generally don't put in the other seasonings. And then they don't let the crawfish soak so the seasonings can infuse the meat. Their way of fixing that is to dump a can of Tony's over the crawfish, the theory being that you got the Tony's on your fingers as you peeled the crawfish and then licked it off as you ate. Personally, I think it's a poor imitation and a wast of money and good seasonings.

[Dead Guy]

[quote="elenek"]...but grew up in South East Texas.[/quote]I'm sorry.