Story, photos and recipes by Cynthia Nobles Young whippersnappers might be surprised to learn that there actually was a time when you could not walk into anygrocery store and buy a pack of cleaned crawfish tails. More unbelievable, until the 1960s, there was no such thing as a commercial crawfish pond. Over the years it’s been interesting to observe the development of our crawfish industry. Louisiana’s commercial sales go back to a recorded harvest in 1880. That year crawfish farmers in natural waters hauled in 23,400 pounds, for a whopping value of $2,140. Those early crawfish overwhelmingly came from Atchafalaya Basin swamps, where production depended on the whims of water levels. During that time some rice farmers did flood off-season fields to coax the little critters out. But anything they caught was used for home consumption. The idea of selling peeled tails began shortly after farmers began flooding rice fields for commercial production in the early 1960s. Both practices exploded in the 1980s, when rice prices plummeted and farmers looked for other ways to make income. Crawfish salesman Lionel Hayes of Henderson is widely considered the father of the modern processed tail meat industry. The story goes that one day Hayes had 7 sacks of live crawfish he could not sell and so asked his sisters to clean them. Hayes then offered the peeled tails to the owners of Don’s Seafood Restaurant in Lafayette, and they enthusiastically bought them. The crawfish processing business was thus born. Today, Louisiana produces 90 percent of domestic crawfish, with more than 1,600 farmers working some 260,000 acres of artificial ponds. About 800 farmers harvest from natural wetlands. The industry employs about 7,000. LSUAg Center projections for 2022 show that we will harvest nearly 150 million pounds. Annually, crawfish contributes over $300 million to our economy. Crawfish have been burrowing in our state’s mud for millions of years, and were an important part of Louisiana’s Native American diet. The Houma tribe, in particular, had high opinions of this indigenous crustacean. It is widely believed that the name “Houma” is an abbreviation of the word “saktcihomma,” meaning “red crawfish.” The Houma revered the little critter so much that the crawfish was their war emblem. A fanciful Cajun legend goes that when the exiled Acadians sailed to Louisiana from Canada, their beloved lobsters followed them on land. After making the long trek, the lobsters lost weight. Those travel weary and now smaller lobsters became known as écrevisse, crawfish. Crawfish gained universal fame in 1960, when the town of Breaux Bridge was named “the Crawfish Capital of the World.” Crawfish earned more prestige in 1983, when Louisiana became the first to name a state crustacean, the crawfish. More formal recognition came in 2015, when our Legislature passed a resolution recognizing April as “Louisiana Crawfish Awareness Month.” At my family’s Acadia Parish rice farm, crawfish are as ubiquitous as rain. We kids naturally spent every spring sloshing barefoot through gooey, muddy rice fields to catch them. The bait of my childhood was raw, bloody melt, beef spleen. Our lift nets, also known as carrelets, were made from squares of cotton netting tied beneath four long wires that connected at the top. We raised them up with bamboo poles. My two brothers wouldn’t flinch at whatever appeared in the nets along with the crawfish. We five sisters, on the other hand, would stifle screams while bravely pulling up creatures such as squirming tadpoles and coiled snakes. But slimy things would not stop us. Nothing, not even ponds covered with ice or filled with fanged serpents, deterred us from catching crawfish. For crawfish boils in those days before propane, daddy would set his mother’s gigantic old cast iron soap kettle over crackling oak logs. He loved inviting family and neighbors. Many times, guests included parish priests. One morning, to our surprise, three nuns from our elementary school appeared at the crawfish pond. More shocking, our teachers insisted on helping catch that day’s dinner. Since the nuns were dressed in flowing head-to-toe black, daddy gallantly laid a few boards out into the shallow pond, creating a narrow walkway. The normally demure nuns hiked up their long skirts, grabbed poles, and crept out, with water constantly splashing over their shoes and stockings. When it came to local crawfish commerce, I suppose my father was ahead of his time. In the years before anyone that we knew dreamed of making big bucks from pond crawfish, Rodney LeJeune was operating a “U-Catch-It” business in one of his flooded rice fields. Every spring he hung a scale from a front yard pine tree. From it he weighed his customers’ rice sacks full of crawfish. I vividly remember the day he raised his price from 8 cents to 10 cents a pound. His profits went straight to my mother, and one year he sold enough for her to buy a new living room set. For reasons other than pin money, mama loved crawfish. On many a day my fingers turned raw from peeling crawfish for her unparalleled etouffee. In her later years, after her seven little crawfish peelers left home, mama occasionally gave in and bought packs of cleaned tails. She judged them suitable, but was always adamant that the best tasting crawfish came from our ponds. Do you have a Louisiana agriculture story or a recipe you’d like to share? Contact me at [email protected]. Cynthia Nobles is the cookbook editor for LSU Press and the author/co-author of several historical cookbooks, including A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook, The Delta Queen Cookbook, and The Fonville Winans Cookbook. Cold Crawfish Dip Makes 3 cups (Best made a day ahead) 4 tablespoons butter 1 pound crawfish tails, with fat 1 cup finely minced onion 1 teaspoon liquid crab boil ¾ teaspoon salt 1 fresh jalapeno pepper, chopped fine 1 (12-ounce) package whipped cream cheese spread ¼ cup mayonnaise ½ teaspoon ground black pepper 3 green onions, finely chopped 1. In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and cook the crawfish and fat, onion, crab boil, and salt for 9 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in jalapeno and cook 1 minute. Remove from heat. 2. In a large bowl, mix together the cream cheese, mayonnaise, black pepper, and green onions. Add the crawfish mixture and mix well. Taste and add more salt and pepper if necessary. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Crawfish Patty Appetizers Makes 12 (1½-inch) pieces 12 frozen mini filo or puff pastry shells 4 tablespoons butter, divided 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1¼ cups seafood or chicken stock ¼ cup finely chopped green onion (plus extra for garnish) 1 teaspoon Creole seasoning 1 cup heavy cream ¼ cup tomato sauce ¼ cup brandy or white wine ½ teaspoon paprika 1 pound crawfish tails, with fat 1 tablespoon lemon juice (plus lemon slices for garnish) 1. Bake pastry shells according to package directions and set aside. In a heavy, deep saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat and stir in flour. Stir constantly until mixture is the color of khaki, 3-4 minutes. Carefully whisk in stock and add remaining 2 tablespoons butter, green onion, and Creole seasoning and simmer 1 minute. 2. Add cream, tomato sauce, brandy, and paprika. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until reduced by one-third. Stir in crawfish, bring to a simmer, and cook 10 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. If too thick, add more stock or cream. 3. Arrange pastry shells on dinner plates and spoon in the crawfish mixture. Garnish with green onion and lemon slices. Serve hot. Crawfish Casserole Makes 12 servings Recipe courtesy of Cheramie Sonnier of Baton Rouge. Cheramie says that her mother created this creamy, retro one-pot meal from whatever she had on hand. It is the one thing her family still requests for holidays, when they enjoy it as a side dish. 2 pounds crawfish tails 1 (6-oz.) package Ben’s Long Grain and Wild Rice, including seasoning packet 2¼ cups warm chicken stock 1 (14½-oz.) can Del Monte French-style green beans, drained 1 (10-oz.) can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted 1 (8-oz.) can sliced water chestnuts, drained 1 (4-oz.) jar pimentos, drained ½ cup chopped onion ½ cup chopped celery ½ cup chopped bell pepper ¼ cup chopped parsley ¼ cup chopped green onion tops 2 cloves garlic, chopped ½ teaspoon salt ¼-½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (depends on how hot you want it) ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Transfer mixture to an oiled 9x13-inch baking dish, cover with foil, and bake 1¼ hours. Remove foil and bake 15 minutes. Remove from oven, cover again with foil, and let sit 10 minutes. Serve warm. Crawfish Étouffée Makes 4 servings 1 stick butter 1 large onion, chopped 1 small green bell pepper, chopped 1 stalk celery, chopped 2 large cloves garlic, chopped 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1½ cups seafood stock or water ½ cup tomato sauce Salt and pepper to taste 1 pound cleaned crawfish tails, with fat 3 green onions, finely chopped ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley For serving: hot cooked rice 1. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat and sauté the onion, bell pepper, and celery until soft, 6-8 minutes. Stir in garlic and flour and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Stir in stock, tomato sauce, salt, and pepper. Lower heat to a bare simmer and cook 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 2. Add crawfish and fat. Stir and simmer 15 minutes. Stir in green onions and parsley. Serve over hot rice.
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Cynthia LeJeune NoblesCynthia Nobles is the cookbook editor for LSU Press and the author/co-author of several historical cookbooks, including A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook, The Delta Queen Cookbook, and The Fonville Winans Cookbook. Archives
November 2023
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