CRAWFISH BOIL, the night before Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday...a Big Feast and a Bon, Bon Temps....

CRAWFISH BOIL: THE FEAST IS ON!

CRAWFISH BOIL is not hard to make, but it takes big pots and a lot of standing around together prepping and boiling stuff while you gulp down 'jars' of rum or whisky or moonshine or whatever...It's a FEAST and Mardi Gras is all about Feasting and Dancing and acting-up something terrible!

This Recipe feeds about eight to ten people....
You have to have at least a five gallon pot with a big strainer insert, if possible...fill it half full with water. Throw in three big heads of garlic, which don't have to be peeled, a handful of bay leaves (5-6), a product called Crab Boil seasoning - at least a tablespoonful, no-iodine salt and lots of fresh ground black pepper, 4 oranges, halved with seeds out; four lemons halved with seeds out, three or more whole large artichokes, and twenty red potatoes, washed, whole. Bring to a boil and then simmer for a half hour. Sir in thirty or so baby corn pieces, a pound of fresh trimmed green beans, two large onions, diced large, and simmer another twenty minutes... Now, stir in cut slices of any favorite smoked sausage - about 30 ounces of it, and simmer for another ten minutes. Finally, and here's the Heathen Part: Add in four pounds of LIVE crawfish that you've rinsed off in a colander under cool water. Bring the mix back to a boil and simmer until the shells turn bright red and the tails pull out easy, which is about five minutes. don't overcook them, or they'll get tough really fast, and they are too expensive to waste. To serve your Boil Louisiana Way, you drain the mass of food in the big strainer, and the spread the whole mass out on clean newspapers spread out on a big picnic table. give folks brown butcher paper and lots of paper towels and let them go at it! It's a big, glorious mess, and I've only done it once and it was really, really delicious, but I really can't go through boiling those crawfish alive to death any more. I'd eat it if someone else did it though, in a quick Cajun second, which is faster than most....
Now, how to eat a crawfish, fresh boiled. First if the tail is straight and NOT curled, then toss that crawfish away, cuz it means it was dead when it got cooked and it's not 'safe' to eat...Then: first: remove the head by holdin' the top of the crawfish with one hand, and then put your other hand above and around the tail. twist so the tail separates from the head. then pinch the very end of the tail with one hand, and pull the tail meat out with the other. pop it down the hatch, sometimes having dipped it in a garlic/cayenne/salted butter sauce if you want to...some people also suck out the head, but I usually can't watch that one, much less try it...I mean, these animals have legs and whisker stuff and eyes and all...nope. I'm not Cajun enough to muscle that one....

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Poem:

Crawfish Boil so fine, so fine
Pass that jar, cher,
Pass them rice and beans
An' when you do get done
We'll all feel good
We'll have a bon, bon  temps
Sweet Cher
We'll have us a real
Good Time....