Super Bowl Sunday and A Cajun Crawfish Boil in Lafayette, Louisiana

chillibreeze writer — Sylvia Perkins

Need an editable PowerPoint map of USA

The request or plea came from our son who lives in Texas asking for a "Crawfish Boil" when he and his wife Jo Jo will visit on Sunday. It began an "all-time-consuming weekend". They did not arrive until late Saturday night. Of course, I had to start several days early to search for the crawfish. Called every seafood distributor in town for live crawfish. They all either answered "we have none" or "too early" or "just ran out" or "call again tomorrow". The story on Saturday (after the many repeated calls) was "still none--the crawfish are not running", "it's too cold and they must be hiding down deep" or "the catch is not worth the trouble", etc. And then I remembered to call David from my Spanish class who had told me that his father grows crawfish to sell.

In the meantime, I had to run around shopping for the necessary accompanying red potatoes, corn on the cob, onions, seasonings, cylinder of propane for the cooking burner, etc. and wonder how many more people John would want to invite and where to put them all, where to cook, how to rinse (someone suggested my bathtub) and divide in batches for boiling. Oh Lord, the weather forecast for Sunday is dismal--rain all day!

Preparation: Lighting the fire

More calls -- to David, to his mother and ultimately to his father who took the order for the crawfish. BUT James had to drive way out (he said "in the nowhere") between Kaplan and Gueydan where their crawfish ponds are. The man was waiting out on his levee in the heavy rain holding the sacks filled with the crawfish.

Pouring in the cayenne. Cajuns like their crawfish to be spicy!

And yes, they were cooked here in my little garden but it was too cold and wet to eat out on the patio or on our porch.

It was intermittent drizzle and pouring-down rain making it quite interesting for such a production. There was lots of picture taking--a whole series ready for U-tube. One sack accidentally opened and the barking dog alerted us to the fact that there were bewildered little crawfish spreading out through the yard--ready to grab the noisy dog's jaws with their open defensive claws. There was loud shrieking from our 7-year old guest who enjoyed the whole chase from under her large umbrella!

Set the table, girls!

With all of the goings in and out of the house, I had to place large towels at the two entrances. Can't you see it? Fifty pounds of hot boiled crawfish, potatoes, corn and onions--all dumped on to my newspaper-covered dining room table (my only table) over an oriental rug surrounded by cloth-padded chairs crowded around it. Paper towels and trash containers. Sure hope that that full garbage can will be picked up by the garbage collectors before it begins to stink!

First eager customer--who will join him?

Oh, the eaters also demanded the sauce fixings: ketchup, horseradish, mayo, hot sauces (one of our guests is from Indonesia and she likes it HOT), Worcestershire Sauce, etc. Plus cold beer, cokes, new "Frostie" root beer in bottles now available at the new Rouser's Store in Youngsville.

At the same time, 14-month old Haven was having a real crying jag--have never seen such an "outcry" before. That required running to Walgreen's for some kind of medicine to soothe the pain. Must be teething, they said. But he did eat crawfish! His parents had been saying he was allergic to seafood--I think "no more!"

Great taste--what a treat!

Compliments abounded for the treat: "delicious and so well seasoned!", "such big ones!", "suck those heads!", "watch me, do it this way!", "here comes another hot batch!" John was so proud of his cooking. It all ended with: "What will we do with all of these leftovers?" That called for three of us sitting around breaking off the heads from the tails and freezing for later. Hope it won't be for me to deal with. Had enough of all this.

Freshly baked bread coming up!

At the same time son Jeffrey in CA called twice during the consumption with his mouth literally watering for some but we have no dry ice for packing and sending, sorry. Son John whose big idea and "envie" for crawfish started all of this proclaimed on the phone last night that it had been "a wonderful day"! Is it worth it? Sure! The mess and destruction is not so important now that the "search, preparation and weather" anxiety has passed. Must tell David thank you or should I say "why did you ever mention that your dad sells the stuff?"

Oh yes! That was fun--a wonderful day!

Would you believe that before everyone left home, I was asked to drive the girls to Pier One to do some shopping before they closed at 7 PM? On our return, the comment I heard was.."Yuck, this house smells like crawfish." Good thing I was not interested in watching the Super Bowl going on at the same time.

 

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—About our writer: Sylvia Perkins lives part of the year in Ajijic, Mexico with her husband Hal and enjoys writing about the local culture and the wonderful people there.

 

 

 

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