Crawfish 101

Posted by Benson

As fun as a crawfish boil is, I imagine that the prospect can seem a little intimidating from the outside.  It’s a whirl people, conversation, music, beer, and all kinds of food that you might not have much experience with.  So today I thought I’d walk you through one of the basic things you need to know in order to start navigating a crawfish boil: how to eat crawfish.

First of all, let’s talk about what happens to the crawfish before it shows up on your plate.  Since we’re in Louisiana, you’re going to be eating Red Swamp Crawfish.  There may be a few White River Crawfish mixed in with the bunch, but you probably won’t be able to tell the difference; they all turn bright red when boiled.  The majority of these crawfish will likely be from local aquaculture, but judging by the sheer amount of crawfish we’ll be eating; there will definitely be a fair amount of wild caught crawfish in the bunch.

The crawfish will be boiled live, and it’s likely that they won’t have traveled far to reach the pot.  Depending on the specific method of preparation at Friends (everybody has their crawfish secrets) the crawfish will be rinsed from once to as many as four or five times before they go into the boil.  The boil will be spiced with a mixture of salt, lemons, red pepper, onions, garlic, and a variety of other spices to vary the flavor, possibly allspice, bay leaves, cayenne, and maybe even a little bit of honey or sugar. 

In addition to the crawfish, Friends likes to include sides into the boil such as red potatoes and corn on the cob.  Because crawfish boil in about ten minutes depending on the specifics of the preparation, the potatoes will be boiled first and the corn thrown in towards the end.  This is important because it means that the potatoes will be extra spicy, so watch out!

At a typical crawfish boil, a row of folding tables is covered in newspaper and the crawfish are dumped out right across the tables for everyone to eat.  Friends prefers to bring the crawfish up in batches and serve them in a large, trough-like dish.  Diners will be equipped with small trays to transport their current serving of mud bugs and hold the empty shells for disposal.  The total amount of crawfish to boil is typically figured at about five pounds per adult, so there should be plenty of crawfish for everyone and more where those came from.

Before you start peeling, remember that crawfish boiled live typically have curled tails.  Those that were dead when they went in the boil (there’s always a few) have flat tails and mushy meat.

You might have heard of the twist, pinch, and suck method of peeling crawfish.  This refers to twisting off the head, pinching the tail, and sucking the head.  This is the basic method we’re going to learn, although sucking the head is entirely optional.  Most crotchety Cajuns suck the heads to put newcomers off their crawfish, but there’s also a culinary reason to do it and I’ll explain that at the end.

Although these colloquial terms are wildly inaccurate in terms of a crawfish’s anatomy, the two basic parts you need to know about are the “head,” the main body of the crawfish, and the “tail,” the segmented abdomen of the crawfish.

To start peeling, grasp the head in one hand and the tail in the other.

Next, twist the head and pull it away from the tail.

At this point, you can pinch the tail and pull out the meat with your teeth, but that takes some crawfish experience.  Being new to peeling crawfish, you will have more success if you peel the first segment of the shell off of the tail.

You can then flip the tail over, use your thumb to pinch the tail at the base, and then pull out the meat.

Last, but not least, you can suck the head.  The reason to do this is that most of the fat is in this part of the crawfish and it doesn’t always come out with the tail meat.  Like crabs, crawfish fat is extremely tasty and it holds a remarkable amount of flavor.

This is all great, but there's little point in eating crawfish unless you've got a beer.  Next week I'll give you a run down of the local microbrews we'll have at the crawfish boil along with some personal suggestions about the best crawfish pairing.