Common Cuisine |

Sunday I was initiated into another southern tradition, as we attended a crawfish boil. Had never heard of such a thing, but I was open to learn.

Let me insert parenthetically here that I grew up in the heartland, hundreds of miles from the nearest coast. I have lived in several states since childhood, but our move to Texas a year ago marked the beginning of my life in the South. Over the course of this year I have learned about brisket, kolaches, and fried everything, but I had not yet experienced the regional Cajun influence until this past weekend.

My years in California gave me a taste for seafood, so I figured I could handle this. Crawfish look like mini lobsters, and they are eaten by cracking them open and pulling out the meat. A crawfish the size of my hand yields a tiny piece of flesh about the size of the first knuckle on my pinkie. Seems like a lot of work for a little payoff, but it sure was entertaining.

These crawfish were cooked along with a bowl full of smoked sausage, potatoes, and 3” ears of corn. There were also mushrooms, onion, lemons and a bag full of spices.

I am not sure how I felt about the crawfish; it was cool as a novelty at first, but I only managed one piece of crustacean. I did, however, like the rest of the choices. Sausage is comfortably familiar to me.

I think the moment I lost my stomach for the whole business came about the time my children discovered the kiddie pool full of live ones around the side of the house. They played with the condemned creatures for over an hour, holding them, racing them across the lawn, holding them so they would fight one another. They were enthusiastically on hand for scooping them into the bucket to be carried over to the boiling pot. And to finish it off, they each requested and were granted permission to personally put one in the pot.

This actually reminds me of an incident from my own childhood. My family was in New Jersey one summer, along the coast somewhere. We stopped at a vendor and purchased a bag full of crabs. This idealistic nine-year-old was so excited that her parents had mysteriously decided these leggy friends would make an aquarium full of terrific pets. You can possibly imagine the horror I felt a few hours later, when, back at the campsite, my mom put them in a pot and turned the water on. I could hear their little claws scraping the inside of the lid, and then it stopped. I cried the rest of the evening, and to this day the smell of the ocean reminds me of that scraping sound.

So I am not sure if my problem was more with the seafood, or the casual attitude of my children for the lives being sacrificed in front of their eyes. To their credit, they also requested and received one each to bring home. I named those two Grace and Redemption, in honor of their second chance at life. We have not seen them since their release into the fish pond.

I hope that as I live here in the South, I continue to develop my taste for southern cooking. After several tries, I still prefer KC barbecue over smoky Texas-style; and I still prefer shrimp for my crustacean consumption. But after last Sunday, I feel much more well rounded, and am comfortable with my progress. At least my children are being exposed to cultural cooking!