Crawfish Boils & Spitfire Nights

By: Amy Thomas


CRAWFISH BOILS & SPITFIRE NIGHTS
Although we have officially lived here for over a year now, this season I celebrated my first crawfish boil.  Crawfish (down here you don't say crayfish) eat like lobsters, aka bottom-feeders, and look like lobsters that were miniaturized with a ray gun.  They are a family staple here, I listen with envy to the stories of family Easters and Memorial Days centered around crawfish boils, because they connect you with the others ravenously hovered and dripping around your table.

My first boil was on the neutral ground on Esplanade at Royal for a friends birthday.  I learned my first 'boil' lesson fast, at a crawfish boil you will always wait.  It will never be ready when scheduled, and that is ok.  You are going to mingle, meet new invitees, and of course, enjoy ice cold libations. During all of this your olfactory glands are being overwhelmed, housing a fight club of incredible, mouth-watering smells.  This stingy, spicy, salt-water scent wafts into the air and creeps into your hair follicles to where you are becoming one with the boil before the red-armored mouth gold even exit the pot.

Traditionally, boils are made with crawfish boil juice which is a mix of vinegar and voracious spices, most people either use Zatarains or Louisiana brand.  Then a mix of whole garlic, lemons, red potatoes, and corn cob pieces, this one also had okra and pineapple in it (we had a chef).

It's time.  You know this because the table is cleared off and lined with newspaper.  The tension builds in the air, you begin to look at the table, strategizing, where am I going to stand...Your mouth begins to water as the pot is hauled over, slowly lifted, and dumped across the table, releasing fifty pounds of bright red delicious, nectariously beautiful, steamy goodness.  I am taught how to eat them, which takes two long seconds, and its on!!

I almost black out until its over.  The shells are hot as hell, I suck the head of each, vacuuming in spicy crawfish stock to the back of my throat, the excess dripping down the sides of my mouth and down my arms--the small bites of meat inside, perfect.  Its so much better than lobster because you have to put so much work into getting to each and every little bite of meat, and the reward is the pay-off.  To me, sucking the head is equally fulfilling to eating the meat, it's like a shot of chanterrelle buerre blanc followed with a bite of medium rare filet mignon with each and every crawfish.


There is a frantic urgency in the air, I spare half a moment to look up to see that everyone is sharing my intensity.  Pick one up, remove the head, suck hard, peel around on the first shell of the abdomen, grab the tale right where it starts, pinch, and pull, eat the meat, throw it down and pick another one up as fast as you can. Do it again.  A banjo is playing in the background.  Friends walking by on the street are called over to join, strangers stand next to each other, ravaging, now we are like brothers and sisters of this visceral moment.

When it's over its like waking up from a dream.  You are covered in juices, you finally feel the sting in every cut on your fingers that you couldn't feel during the ecstasy of eating.  Survey your pile of carcasses and feel proud.  The music starts, the horns, and drums, mixing with hillbilly banjos.  You feel fulfilled, alive, maybe a little drunk, and it feels like you are a part of a low country tribe of vandals, like a gypsy queen of alligators and crustaceans alike.

Red Beans & Rice...Let's Get Dirty

I was finally put to the most arduous task of making red beans and rice and be critiqued by the native masses.  This is no small task.  I am from the South, I understand how serious things like this are.  If you don't make it like they remember there grandmother's making it, then it is wrong.  At the same time, there are no two recipes that are alike, thus continuing Sisyphus' trip up the hill. For me, there is really only one way to make grits, fried chicken, or collards, yes, there are variations on additions, but at the core there is only one way.  One way.  So, I began by doing my research.

Red beans first came to Louisiana via the Haitian Slave Revolt that began in 1789 and flushed out all the refugee plantation owners and eventually freed and slave Africans up the Mississippi to New Orleans.  Now this emigration brought so much to New Orleans, variations on voudoux, new musical instruments, and sugar cane know how.  It shaped the depth of culture and tradition in the city in so many ways.

Red Beans and Rice is traditionally served on Mondays--it's all about leftovers.  As well, as something mindless to make that you can ignore to clean the house, wash the clothes, etc.  Also, the sausage is traditional served on the side, but this is not how my recipe goes, I cannot give up the unbelievable flavor of pork fat from beginning to end.

1 lb Camellia Brand red beans, its a good Louisiana company.  Soaked overnight and drained. If you have the money add some white wine to the water you soak them in overnight.  You can also add an onion quartered and some dried peppers to infuse more flavor into the beans.

1 lb Louisiana Jasmine rice

1 ham hock
1 1/2 lb smoked sausage, halved and sliced

1 vidalia onion, minced
2 celery stalks, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 bell pepper, minced

1/2 c. white cooking wine
6 c chicken stock

1 t. cayenne, depends on how hot you are ready to go!
4 bay leaves
8 sprigs of fresh thyme
salt and pepper

2 Tbl butter

• Sear the ham hock on all sides in a large pot.  Add the halved and sliced smoked sausage and get a good sear producing pork fat to suate the vegetables in.
• Lower the temperature on the stove unit and add the vegetables, being careful not to burn anything. 
• Add the well drained beans.
• Deglaze the pan with 1/2 c. white cooking wine, and cook until almost all of the wine is gone.
• Add the chicken stock, you can also just use water here or a vegetable stock depending on monetary and dietary restrictions.
• Add the cayenne, bay leaves, thyme, and a little salt and pepper.  This will be cooking on low for about two more hours so you don't want to add too much salt too early, the taste will intensify.
• Let it ride on a slow boil for about two hours.  Make sure the beans are neither crunchy or smushed.
• In the mean time, about 20 minutes before the beans are done, cook the rice.  Slightly season with salt and pepper.
• Add butter to the beans when it is done, stir until the butter melts, taste for salt and pepper and add more if needed.
• Garnish with green onion if you are going for flare