That fish cray.

Despite all of the lenting and repenting that has gone on for the past 40 days, there has been a very clear silver lining present throughout: Crawfish Boils.

It’s common knowledge that New Orleanians know how to make the best out of the worst circumstances. And finding a way to make repenting during lent 100% worth it is just one of the many things we’re good at.

Examples of What You Gave Up vs. What You Gained:

·         If you gave up listening to music in the car, you gained more time to think about crawfish (or perhaps God eating crawfish… if thinking about him was part of the objective…)

·         If you gave up lavish spending, you gained more money to spend on crawfish (getting your weekly dose of Omega-3s is imperative to your health, NOT lavish).

·         If you gave up smoking, you gained added ambition to treat the crawfish like a cigarette and suck the head (luckily for you, the buzz you get from crawfish is much less lung impairing).

·         If you gave up drinking, you gained more time to… we cannot fathom the infinite amount of things you gained time to do if you gave up drinking for lent. (Seriously, shouldn’t you have cured cancer by now?)

At LOC, we didn’t necessarily give anything up, but we added the task of actively thanking God for all of our blessings each day. And did we ever realize how blessed we truly are. Blessed for our plethora of Catholic friends which guaranteed us exorbitant amounts of crawfish every Friday since the beginning of Lent. Blessed for our plethora of non-Catholic friends which guaranteed us a perfect rounding out of the weekend with crawfish themed Sunday Fundays. And blessed that crawfish don’t hold any religious prejudices.

However, despite the many more blessings crawfish bestow upon us, they also compound the debt we own. See, during the Lenten season, most of country is preoccupied with only being indebted to one chief being… while most Southerners quickly rack up a list of about 50. Our current list of debtors owed is as follows: (1) Jesus (2) he who hosted the last crawfish boil (3-50) he who hosted the last 48 crawfish boils. (Sorry to our moms and dads, after much deliberation, y’all barely missed the cut this year).

But thank God that that lent is over, because now crawfish boils are unrestricted to Fridays and you are unrestricted to living a life filled with morality. Yes, gluttony is still one of the 7 deadly sins, regardless of the season, but we’re pretty confident that the deadlyness of the deadly sins takes a steep decline post-Easter. Thus, full-frontal-gluttony for the remainder of crawfish season is highly encouraged.

For those of you out of towners who have never been to a crawfish boil, let’s dive right into pot.

Here’s a video of how to properly eat crawfish:

YouTube Crawfish Tutorial 

Here’s information on how to make your own boil:

GoNola: At Home Crawfish Recipe 

And if all goes right, the boil will look a little something like this:

In every crawfish boil, these are the likely components you will find:

Staples to qualify it as more than just boiling water:

·         Crawfish

·         Crawfish Boil Mix

·         Staples for flavor:

·         Onions

·         Garlic

·         Lemons

·         Staples among veggies:

·         Potatoes

·         Corn

Staples of making the most veggified and delicious boil possible:

·         Artichoke

·         Celery

·         Mushrooms

·         Asparagus

·         Brussel Sprouts

Staples of non-veggie add-ins:

·         Sausage

·         Crabs

At LOC, we hold no preferences or predispositions, yet we prefer preposterous amounts of all of the above. Seriously, don’t invite us to a boil if there’s not going to be a solitary vegetable in the whole batch. And seriously, when we say don’t invite us, we mean please please please invite us. We will act super gracious and happy the whole time we’re there, we promise. But do expect at least two unapproving glances thrown your way throughout the night. But don’t worry; they will be behind your back. But seriously, thanks for inviting us.

And thus we proceed to our next point: never say no to a crawfish boil. And if you’re in town between the months of February and June, do everything you can to get to a crawfish boil.

1st time dos and don’ts:

·         BYOB and BsomemoreB for those hosting.

·         Bring an appetizers and/or ask if  you can chip in boil $.

·         Ask someone to teach you how to peel and eat the crawfish if you don’t know how. There’s nothing worse than to haphazardly go at it alone, not enjoy yourself and go home starving.

·         If you are a pro peeler, make sure those hosting the boil get their fair share before you devour every last crustacean.

·         Offer many, many thanks.

However, if you have an incredibly unappealing personality, can’t control yourself from digging through the post-consumed boil remains to savage every last garlic clove, or only partake in the boil activity of “sucking the heads”, then it is quite possible that you may not be invited to a crawfish boil ever again. We know, it’s not fair, but you’ve brought this reality upon yourself. So head to Big Fisherman’s Seafood (3301 Magazine St), buy yourself 3 lbs of crawfish and go find a nice relaxing place to devour it by your lonesome. It sounds sad, but it’s not. You’re in New Orleans, and you’re eating boiled crawfish. Life is good.

“Laissez les bon temps rouler”

          - LOCraw-daddies

Insider Tip: If for some awful reason you don’t care for crawfish boils; i.e., you don’t like strong scents of seafood, you don’t like feeling quite so carnivorous while you eat, or you don’t like bloating like a balloon from consuming over 10000% of your daily recommended intake of sodium… you should not rule out crawfish all together. For instance, consider trying: crawfish rolls, crawfish bread, crawfish cakes, crawfish pies, crawfish monica, crawfish fried rice, crawfish quesadillas, crawfish jubilee, crawfish stuffed crab, fried crawfish tails, crawfish poboys, and our personal favorite, crawfish stuffed crawfished crawfish.