Almost a year ago, my mom sent me a package for my birthday. It was a box of Tony's, a couple of boxes of instant Zatarain's, and some crab boil. It's well-known that China steals a lot of the market for crawfish in Louisiana, so my mom assumed I'd be able to find some to cook.
I noticed quite a long time ago that the market near my house almost always has a supply of shrimp and crabs. I'd never seen crawfish before, but with that crab boil in my cabinet, I decided it was time to get some of the tasty sea creatures and expose my Southern Californian friends to a little cajun tradition.
Mario and I splurged on onions, garlic, corn, potatoes, cauliflower, crabs, crawfish, and shrimp. I was surprised to see crawfish; it was necessary to indulge. We bought eight crabs and a jin each (1.1 pound) of shrimp and crawfish. I knew instantly that this was no where near what is necessary for a proper crawfish boil, but Mario kept expressing concern that it would be too much food. I just sort of looked at him quizzically because I know that having 150 pounds of crawfish isn't always enough.
We came home and began the process. Only one small bag of crab boil. No oil, just the powder. Only one small pot to cook in. We started with the vegetables because Ilan is a vegetarian. Two rounds of vegetables in, and I was pretty sure the crab boil was spent. But I figured, they don't know the difference and kept cooking. The pot would only hold half of the crawfish at a time.
When we bought them, Mario said, "Wait...these are alive."
"Yes. What's your point?"
"I've never cooked anything that was alive before."
"You HAVE to cook them alive. If they're dead, you can't eat them."
"Really? Ok. As long as you know what you're doing."
A whole pound of crawfish, and only one was dead. They had no interest in playing with the crawfish before we boiled them alive. I sort of think of this as part of the ritual. Grabbing the crawfish by their bodies so they can't pinch you, letting them walk backwards, naming them. No one wanted to hold them, so I just played a little. We named one (Hector) and then cooked him.
I was pleasantly surprised by how far the crab boil went. While they were no prize winners for spiciness, they tasted very good. (This, by the way, was the first time I'd ever cooked crawfish. I've only watched the little guys blush their bright red as they're boiled alive from a distance. I must admit, it wasn't easy to put the creepy crawly little things in the pot alive. I bucked up, though, as the only psuedo-cajun present.)
Everyone generally enjoyed the meal. I made them stand to eat (partially because I don't have enough chairs, partially because it's too messy to try to have a sit down situation, partially because we should have been outside standing around a newspaper covered table). I taught them how to peel the shrimp, crawfish, and crabs. Of course, Mario exclaimed, "That's ALL?!" After he'd peeled his first crawfish. I just rolled my eyes as he pondered exactly how much we'd spent on the heads and shells.
