Crawfishing . . .

When I was a youngster I recall people crawfishing along what was then US 90 now US 190 along the sides of the road.  There was plenty of room in those days as big trucks were a very rare thing and there was not a great deal of traffic.  Also the land were not as well drained and thus the ditches along the sides of the road held water for a long time.  The ultimate habitat for crawfish.

I also did some crawfishing.  Tie a chicken neck on a piece of string and set in to almost any body of water and one could catch crawfish.  More sophisticated crawfishers used a square net about twelve or thirteen inches on the side with stiff wire that came to an apex above the net.  One tied the chicken neck in the center of that net and put the whole thing the turbid water in a canal or ditch.  You waited about ten minutes and then using a long cane pole lifted the net and swung it toward land.  You then quickly got to the net and dumped your catch into a wash tub.  Soon you have a good quantity of crawfish sufficient to take home in the tub.

Once at home, we flushed the water a couple times until it was clear running.  This got rid of most of the trash and of course the dirty water.  You dumped the crawfish into a boiling pot of water.  In about 10 minutes you had you cooked crawfish and could grab then and eat them.

Later as teenager, my neighbor had a bid sugar kettle and we built a big fire around it.  We then poured in four or five thirty pound sacks of crawfish.  We had added big round onions and dozens of lemons and a ton of seasoning.  Took a while but after a few visiting beers to encourage appetites, we had well season tasty crawfish to eat.  We youngsters acted as the labor and the adults drank the beer.

Now things are very sophisticated.  We have caterers that have a specially built trailer with a hundred gallon tank that is fired by propane gas.  He can boil several hundred pounds of crawfish at once.  He tosses corn ears and small potatoes.  Some even add sausage others toss in pineapple chunks, mushrooms and artichokes but that is mostly neighborhood boils where one cooks fifteen or so pounds at a time over a single propane burner.  The water is heavily salted and a great deal of cayenne pepper is add.

So we do our crawfishing today at the grocery store or a known supplier who imports to our region, Dallas/Fort Worth.  Those same caterers will sell you fresh crawfish too.  They are all imported to Texas from Louisiana, mostly from the rice fields in and around Ville Platte, LA.  Crawfish are the second cash crop off those rice fields today.

You no longer see people crawfishing along the sides the highways.  It is all a big commercial operation, an industry.  No matter they are just as tasty and if well season are spring treat.  We have been to three such boils already this year and probably will have one more, this one back in Louisiana at the camp on False River. 

Yummy!