Berled Crawfish, Potatoes and Corn on the Cob - Easter Dinner

[BOSSHOG]

My wonderful wife keeps me on a tight diet during Lent. She asked me what I wanted for Easter Dinner, I said Crawfish. She said done deal. Lots of Zatarains spices and the secret is lots of garlic but don't tell anyone. Chuck in a few onions as well and berl away. I'd love to get some Baked Ersters from New Orleans but that might have to wait a week when the French Quarter Fest hits the big easy.

[Xipe Totec]

1. I missed them so much, I had them air freighted once

all the way to Massatwoshits, two years back.

Cost a fortune but it was worth it. Most folk up here had never seen the critters on a plate, let alone alive and pinching.

Zatarains is the only way to go.

:9

[Lisa]

2. I used to catch crayfish/crawdads as a kid in Southern Ontario

Some of them were decent-sized (5-6 inches, even in the overhunted/polluted 1970s). One of my co-workers is from Essex County (our version of Louisiana, across from Detroit -- very flat, rich alluvial farmland). His family, who are French-Canadian, used to eat crayfish and muskrat dinners all the time. We have one species of crayfish which actually lives on land and builds little tunnels in damp pastureland.

Even had sassafras trees, which I later learned can produce file powder for gumbo.

[BOSSHOG]

7. The powder of Sassafras trees

is welcome addition to gumbos. "little tunnels in damp pastureland." Lisa you are killing me. The Cajuns from Canada herded their Lobsters down to Nawlins and left them all over the country to dig their tunnels. The lobsters that ended up in Loooo-see-anna were so wore out they shrunk up to Crawfish size. And have been a godawful delicacy eversince.

[Lisa]

10. would I lie to you, Boss?

I swear I'm not making this up. I used to work at a natural history museum, helping answer visitors' questions -- and one older lady from north of Toronto asked me if I knew what was causing the little clay mounds all over her lawn! Her description of them as being "hollow like chimneys" rang a bell. I happened to recall something one of the older scientists had said to me once, and sure enough ... there is a critter called the "burrowing crayfish". I asked her, "is there a creek near your place", and she said, "why yes, how did you know?"


http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/fisheries/420-524/420-524.html

Anyway, I begged her not to tear up the burrows with a backhoe (or worse, put down poison), and explained that crawfish eat weeds, snails, and other things that are bad for gardens. She didn't think that they were cute, and she certainly wasn't planning on harvesting them ... but she did agree, reluctantly, that killing them off would do more harm than good.

[Xipe Totec]

11. Me Too!

Back in Mexico we fished the drainage ditches. We used chicken necks on strings to lure them to the edge, then we'd slap them onto shore with our hands. Must have been 10 years old at the time. We'd boil them and eat them with lime juice and salt. In Mexico they are known by their Aztec name; "Acamaya".

When I lived near Houston, we had a home next to an old rice field and the crawdads would build mud tunnels in our back yard. I once made a raised flowerbed too close to the back wall of the house, and the crawdads built tunnels between the flower beds and the wall. Long story short, they blocked drainage and flooded our master bedroom one rainy Summer. Nothing like waking in the middle of the night to step on soggy wall-to-wall carpeting.

My oldest son is Russian (adopted), and has memories of catching crawdads in the streams near the Volga River.

It seems these critters are all over the world!

But there is nothing better on the table than real Louisiana mud-bugs, boiled in a 10 Gallon pot over a gas burner, seasoned with Zatarains!



:9

[BOSSHOG]

3. We were in the Quarter last weekend

and Crawfish was 8.99 a pound - ridiculous. I had to have a veggie fajita to placate my lovely wife, but 8.99 is an insane price (borderline tourist trap prices.) I'm looking forward to getting sloppy Sunday Afternoon. Come on down, the French Quarter Festival is next weekend. Zatarains is awesome as is Tony Chachere's.

[Xipe Totec]

12. This is where I go when I get desperate

You can get them live and kicking for less than $5.60 a pound. And the price goes down with volume.

http://www.lacrawfish.com/index.html

Screw the tourist traps!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. Happy Easter to you

Boss! Ham at our house, or maybe pork roast. But crab boil tonight if the boat has come in.

T-Grannie

[BOSSHOG]

5. And a very Happy Easter to you My Dear

Ham and Scalloped potatoes is one of my favorites but I'll eat anything. It has been quite awhile since I've had crawfish and I'm anxious to get messy Sunday Afternoon. Weather is good so we will mess up the patio then hose it off. The local grocery store is out of Hams. we'll cook one up soon. I'm looking forward to pink crustaceans, my wife is looking forward to chocolate. There is something good about Lent after all.

[CatWoman]

6. Boss Hog,

didn't Katrina severely damage the crawfish crops?

[BOSSHOG]

8. Not a bit

I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but I heard a guy on the radio say that the crawfish weren't disturbed at all because they were underground working on this year's crop. We are having an ample crop this year, thank goodness. And, (I hate to say this) but crawfish imports are available from China (crawfish tails.) Wildlife did fairly well with the hurricane. The worst problem was saltwater incursion into grasslands inland. Many birds lost their habitat but there has been tremendous effort (us included) to get our birds back to a nice environment for them. Our mockingbirds are singing incredibly beautiful tunes every morning. They get drunk in the afternoon eating the Holly Berries and keep on singing.

[CatWoman]

9. Glad to hear that

and I think it's fantastic what you're doing for the birds :D