Consider the crawfish. Beady black eyes. Claws and surly personality. Even its name is ugly — Procambarus clarkii, red swamp crawfish. Or its kin of the mud — Procambarus zonangulus, the white river crawfish. And these ugly suckers go by other unlovely names: mudbugs, crawdads, crayfish. But pop these curmudgeonly looking freshwater crustaceans into a pot of boiling water loaded with cayenne and other seasonings, and then it’s a meal. Not for the meek, but for the adventurous. People who don’t mind working a little bit for their food. Crawfish season is at its peak. And the spell of the crawfish extends into early June, so if you’re daring, central Arkansas has several spots for you to dine on these crusty, cantankerous crustaceans.
'TIS THE SEASON
Getting crawfish to Arkansas is a unique business. Sure, you might find a few mudbugs swimming in the creeks around here or hanging out under rocks when the lake is low, but when it comes to a springtime crawfish boil, the good stuff comes from Louisiana.
“I can call Ben E. Keith and get just about anything I want,” says Travis Hester, owner of Eat My Catfish in Benton. “But crawfish, that’s a different story. I call these guys in Louisiana — we call them the brother-in-laws — and they’ll send me what I need. It’s all about relationships.”
Born and raised in Saline County, Hester’s not what you would expect from your typical Cajun crawfish guy. But in his fifth crawfish season with the restaurant (which operated as a food truck for three and a half years before setting up permanent shop on Military Road), Hester understands crawfish down to a science. He gets his bugs from Eunice and Moreauville, both in south-central Louisiana. He can tell you what part of the season calls for which supplier — warmer water brings a better crawfish harvest, so crawfish are ready sooner in the shallower areas — and that there is such thing as a tail that’s too big — this has to do with the crustacean’s diet in the rice fields. When Eat My Catfish first started offering crawfish five years ago, Hester’s suppliers from Eunice came to Arkansas to show him the ropes. “We have since evolved recipes and techniques to fit our business,” he says.
If you’re dining in at Eat My Catfish, crawfish go for $6 a pound, plus 50 cents each for potatoes, 75 cents each for yellow corn and $2 each for Andouille sausage, a system which Hester says works because customers get exactly what they want. But dine-in service is only part of the gig; Eat My Catfish sells half of the approximately 1.5 million individual crawfish it sees every year live and ready to be boiled by locals in backyards and at block parties.
Hester has two major tips for people boiling their own crawfish this season: “Clean your crawfish well.” As you can imagine, any bits of mud left in the nooks and crannies of [the crawfishes’] underbellies will get in the water they’re boiled in, adding a grittiness and, well, muddy flavor to your boil,” he says. “Get all that mud out. We take ours outside and basically blast them with a fire hose.”
Second: “After you’re done cooking, let them soak for 20-30 minutes to absorb the flavor of the water.” If it’s the right time of the season, and the crawfishes’ shells are soft enough to absorb that flavor, letting them soak longer will make them all the better for it.
For those who looking to go the DIY route, the cost is around $3 a pound, and you’re left to add in whatever vegetables you want — because if you’ve ever been to a crawfish boil, you know that finding other goodies soaked in crawfish spice is half the fun. Some of the more creative treats Hester says he’s seen seasoned along with crawfish at a boil include mushrooms, artichokes, green beans, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, asparagus, ham and even Spam. Yes, Spam.
Crawfish season runs from January to mid-summer — “Super Bowl weekend to the Fourth of July” — though the season’s dates change from year to year. “Mother Nature controls it all the way,” Hester says, but he points out that there are two or three weeks every year that are the best — tails not too big, shells not too hard — and those weeks are upon us now. Easter weekend, traditionally the biggest weekend of the year for crawfish boils, was the beginning of that magical period of time for crawfish this year.
What does that mean for crawfish newbies? If you’ve never given this Southern staple a try, now is the time.
—Stephanie Maxwell
THE CRAWFISH FAMILY
The cayenne-saturated steam kicks you in the back of the throat. Robs you of breath and forces coughs. The tiny, screened-in partition in the basement of The Faded Rose is filled with this penetrating mist soaked with ground red pepper.
Ed David, owner of the Riverdale restaurant, is used to the powerful steam. He’s been boiling crawfish for 65 years, since he was about 6 and growing up in New Orleans. He can talk and breath in this suffocating fog. Dressed in a New Orleans Saints sweatshirt on this stormy day, he holds a measuring cup packed with pungent cayenne pepper. Nearby, David’s son and Faded Rose general manager, Zac David, washes buckets of crawfish.
Four large pots sit on burners in this hallway-like room underneath The Faded Rose. Each of these pots containing roiling, orange-y water is full of cayenne. Soon a collective, crawling jumble of live crawfish will meet their hot water deaths within, resurfacing as bright red crustaceans popping with flavors and juices. Unlike a lobster, there are no last screams from a crawfish.
“The only secret is seasoning them properly. It’s a combination of the amount, the type,” Ed David says. He pauses. “We’re not giving away my recipe.” He speaks that last sentence good-naturedly, but he’s also serious. Six and a half decades of boiling crawfish teaches you secrets and minutiae you don’t disclose.
The boiling water does contain the aforementioned cayenne. Crab boil, garlic, onions, lemons and Louisiana Hot Sauce, too. (Tabasco’s too vinegary.)
“They’re well-seasoned,” Ed David says. “From what I hear from customers, we do the best job of seasoning them. So I’m told. I don’t eat them anywhere else because I don’t need to.”
The popularity of The Faded Rose’s weekly Wednesday crawfish boils backs up Ed David’s claim. Crawfish at Faded Rose starts on Mardi Gras, and following that day, the crawfish boil is held each Wednesday at 4 p.m. during the late winter and spring. A pound of crawfish with potatoes and corn goes for $7.95 and two pounds with the trimmings is $15.50.
Ed and Zac David start boiling crawfish around noon each Wednesday. The crawfish are then stored in huge white coolers where they stay warm. When ordered, the crawfish are plunged again into a steaming, seasoned bath for half a minute or so before being served. The last-minute dunking makes sure diners receive hot crawfish, but the final submersion also adds more spiciness. (The air in the boiling room might be drenched in spices, but the prepared crawfish are not too spicy for the general public.)
“This is our Wednesday ritual,” Ed David says. And the pair never tire of it. Even when the weather doesn’t mirror the party atmosphere a crawfish boil usually brings. This year has been particularly awful weatherwise — Wednesdays so far during the 2013 crawfish season have been either really cold or cold and wet. But pretty soon the weather will turn, and Faded Rose will have a patio full of crawfish eaters, some arriving an hour before the crawfish are ready.
“We’ve been really fortunate to develop a following for our crawfish,” Ed David says. “We got people who will come here every week for the full season.”
The history of crawfish boils at Faded Rose, which opened in 1982, stretches back to the Fourth of July 1983. That was Faded Rose’s first Mudbug Madness Festival. The party was an annual event until the early ’90s when it was stopped. “The only reason we stopped doing it on the Fourth of July was that it got more and more difficult to get crawfish for the Fourth of July,” Ed David says. “That’s really after the end of the season.”
(Peak season for crawfish is April with the season extending into late May and early June with crawfish being harvested until the catch is no longer justified.)
After that last Mudbug Madness Festival, crawfish availability at Faded Rose was moved to begin earlier in the year and expanded to a weekly event. On Mardi Gras this year, Faded Rose served up approximately 500 pounds of crawfish. On Wednesdays during the season, the average served is between 280 pounds to 300 pounds. Any leftovers Ed David will eat for breakfast. He loves cold crawfish. Not that there are many leftovers.
“We never sold the amount that we sell now,” Ed David says. “It’s just grown over the years. There’s always been a little educational curve, and there still is. We still have waiters showing customers how to peel them and eat them.”
Zac David says this year’s crawfish crop has been slightly better than average so far. “We’ve been able to get them earlier,” he says. “And I feel like there could be more demand this year because of that. I feel like sizewise they haven’t gotten as big as this time last year.”
Faded Rose uses a crawfish supplier based in Eunice, La. Each week the fresh, live crawfish are driven the six hours from south Louisiana to Faded Rose.
A few years ago, Louisiana State University’s Agricultural Center published its 60-page Louisiana Crawfish Production Manual. Consider this the bible of crawfish. Crawfish biology. Crawfish farming. Crawfish pricing. The manual covers it. On page 52, there’s a section titled: Purging and Cleaning. The manual states “immersing crawfish in salt water immediately before boiling” is not effective in “evacuating the gut.” All that does is make the crawfish even more ornery. The best method? Soak them in water, clean and wash them. Faded Rose does that.
“Now we serve happy crawfish,” Ed David says.
Happy? Maybe. But also the best crawfish I’ve had in central Arkansas. Big. Perfectly cooked. Pumped with spices but not overpowering. I make quick work of the sample Ed David supplies. I thank him and wait for more.
—Shea Stewart
SATURDAY AFFAIR
I once watched a man in Vicksburg, Miss., eat a whole crawfish. He was lounging on a stoop downtown during the city’s own little Riverfest. A big Styrofoam tray of boiled crawfish in front of him. Popped a whole crawfish in his mouth and started chewing. I swear. And I don’t think it was the beer talking to me ... or him. He spit out some shell and a claw. My friend and I observing this stopped, mesmerized, pondering what our eyes had witnessed and whether he’d do it again. Maybe he was just doing it for effect. He did it again. Then we continued on down the street to where people ate crawfish normally.
I’m not advocating eating the entire crawfish as the best way for enjoying the mud-dwelling delicacy. But it’s a start. Or end.
But eating any part of a crawfish might be unnatural to some. Too much trouble for too little meat. That’s why you suck the head then eat the tail meat. The combination — if the crawfish are prepared right — is fabulous. Some kind of spicy, Cajunized lobster.
And Wright Avenue’s K. Hall & Sons Produce in Little Rock knows how to prepare crawfish right. That’s certain. Founded in 1976, the cramped grocery is about fresh produce, meats, fruits and more. Like the sign out front announces on a recent Saturday morning: “Greens. Take home cooked veggiez. Crawfish boil Sat.”
That’s why I’m here on a late March Saturday — for the advertised crawfish boil. This morning is disagreeable. It’s going to rain off and on all day. But earlier in the morning, K. Hall’s Facebook page announced, “Yes it is coming down outside. But the crawfish crab legs and shrimp cooks will be cooking today. Rain sleet or snow K. Hall seafood is happening.” I knew then what my lunch plans were.
Shortly before noon I’m standing in line at K. Hall. The shrimp are boiling. The crab legs are boiling. The crawfish are boiling. Steam erupts from coolers each time they are opened.
The woman in front of me is talking on her phone, discussing with some unseen, unheard party what she should and shouldn’t get for lunch. “No crab legs? They look good. I’m getting some for myself. You’ll just have shrimp.”
The man in front of her hands a ticket to the young man taking orders, filling orders and wrapping them in cellophane. A ticket? I don’t have a ticket. Do I need a ticket? I see no money exchanged. I need a ticket. I turn to the lady behind me, not talking on her phone.
“Do I place my order inside?”
“Yes,” she says. “Order inside and they give you a ticket.” I need a ticket. I go inside. The grocery is crowded with Saturday morning shoppers.
Two to three pounds of crawfish will feed a person. Four pounds it is. Plus, a pound of shrimp. The prepared crawfish are $5 per pound, including some corn, potatoes and sausage. The crab legs and shrimp are $9.50 a pound. The order comes to $32.60. A little expensive for lunch but hopefully worth it.
I re-enter the line. There’s a new person in front of me. He spots me and says, “You came down for some good food, too.” He talks up the food. The crawfish are good. The crab legs are good. The shrimp are good. Says he comes to K. Hall on his lunch break during the week. Loves the homemade chili. There’s a sign on the door advertising the chili: “Big Dave’s Home-made Chili. $2.49 a 8 oz. cup.” The man’s friend has two tubs of the chili.
The man is up. Hands his ticket over. Wants some of the drawn butter staying melted in a Crockpot. He also gets a big, yellow Styrofoam tray of crab legs and shrimp. No crawfish. He wishes me a good day and departs. Now it’s my time.
Ticket delivered. The young man serving scoops out a heap of shrimp into a small yellow tray. Throws some corn, potatoes and sausage on top. Then comes even more heaping scoops of crawfish into a huge white foam tray. He double wraps both trays in cellophane.
“How long will you guys be serving crawfish this year?”
“We’ll probably have some up until late June or July even.”
Twenty minutes later I’m eating crawfish and drinking beer on a rainy Saturday afternoon. The crawfish are good sized. Not as spicy as I like them. (The spicier the better, I say.) Still, the heads pop off and offer spicy juices when squeezed and cracked, adding flavor to the crawfish tail meat that follows seconds later.
I work quickly. Tear the tail off. Suck the head. (Seriously, that’s where the flavor lives.) Pop the top scale off the tail. Squeeze the bottom and slip the meat from its shell. Repeat. Drink some beer.
The corn packs a spice wallop, with flakes of spice lodged between the kernels. The sausage is tender and tasty. The potatoes delicious. This crawfish meal is a royal meal indeed.
Get the shrimp. They are fabulous. Classic oxymoron: jumbo shrimp. Bigger than the crawfish sometimes. Boiled to perfection. Snappy texture. Huge and delicious.
Crawfish, beer and shrimp on a rainy Saturday. How much better can life get? Not much better. Not today at least.
—Shea Stewart
LOUISIANA LEXICON
Acadiana The official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Francophone population.
Andouille A spicy country sausage used in gumbo and other Cajun dishes.
Cajun Slang for Acadians, the French-speaking people who migrated to South Louisiana from Nova Scotia in the eighteenth century. The term now applies to the people, the culture and the cooking.
Cajun Trinity Onions, bell peppers and celery, the three most often used ingredients in Cajun/Creole cooking.
Creole The word originally described those people of mixed French and Spanish heritage who migrated from Europe or were born in Southeast Louisiana and lived as sophisticated city or plantation dwellers. The term has expanded and now embraces a type of cuisine and a style of architecture.
Don’t eat the dead ones Crawfish tails curl up when boiled; those with straight and floppy tails were usually dead before they hit the water. The phrase warns to avoid the fish with straight tails because not only are they not as fresh, their meat is a mushy texture as well.
Etoufee A succulent, tangy tomato-based sauce. A smothered dish usually made with crawfish or shrimp.
File Ground sassafras leaves used to season, among other things, gumbo.
Gumbo A thick, robust roux-based soup; seafood variations can include crawfish.
Holy Trinity The Cajun Trinity with garlic added.
Jambalaya A rice dish with any combination of beef, pork, fowl, smoked sausage, ham or seafood, as well as celery, green peppers and often tomatoes.
Lagniappe This word is Cajun for "something extra," like the extra donut in a baker's dozen; an unexpected nice surprise.
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Cajun French for “let the good times roll!”
Poboy A sandwich that began as a five-cent lunch for poor boys. Always made with French bread, poboys can be stuffed with fried oysters, shrimp, fish, crawfish, meatballs, smoked sausage and more.
Purge The process of flushing dirt, grit and mud out of a batch of crawfish in preparation for a boil. Some people use salt in a purge, but this presents the risk of killing some of the crawfish.
Roux Base of gumbos or stews, made of flour and oil mixture.
Suck the head After removing the tail of the crawfish, the practice of sucking out the mixture of juices in the abdominal hollow which have absorbed the boil's spices.
—compiled by Stephanie Maxwell