it’s FINALLY crawfish season here in the ‘Sip, and we’ve been eating the hell out those spicy little things. At festivals on picnic tables, in our own backyard over a washtub, over newspaper on the kitchen counter… wherever we can find some space (and have an opportunity), we’ve been taking full advantage of the time of year. not everybody likes mudbugs (something about looking your dinner square in the face while you peel their shell away makes some folks queasy, I guess..and other people can’t take the spicy slow-burn of the Old Bay, crab boil, and salt that seasons the water) but I can’t get enough of them. I’ve heard that getting them shipped live out of their native lands MS and LA and Texas can cost CRAZY amounts, so it’s probably better to just make a trip down south if you’ve never tried them before.
In fact, my most favorite people in the whole world came down last weekend for our favorite Festival of all time.. the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, MS. (That’s a lot of favorites, I know… but truly, I’m not exaggerating!) Blues music everywhere, local folks, visitors from around the Delta, along with European tourists milling around the downtown, funnel cakes, hot tamales, booths and booths of artists’ wares, and all of the juke joints in town open with great live music… if you’ve not been here for it, you should make a note on your calendar RIGHT NOW for next year’s festival…the 3rd weekend in April.
Anyway, every year we eat crawfish until we burst…. it turns out that 30 pounds of cooked crawfish for 8 people may just have been a few too many, but we sure did make a solid effort to eat them all. Sometimes we get them at the Delta Amusement Cafe (worth it!) but this year we worried they’d run out before we arrived, so we ordered them from a great place down the road from our house… Fratesi’s Grocery. They make them just spicy enough to make your lips tingle, but not spicy enough that you have to stop eating them… perfect.
If you want to cook your own, you’ll either have to buy them at a store (if you live between Texas and Florida) OR, if you live in other parts of the country and are dead set on it, you’ll have to order them, which I’ve heard costs an arm and a leg since you have to order them LIVE. If that’s your lot, I’d recommend just coming down to Juke Joint or making sure to visit deep south in spring time!
We didn’t cook our own this time, but the next time we do, I’ll share the secrets with you! For now, let your mouth water at all the spicy goodness…
