Patricia Tersi's

          CAJUN BAYOU

          The Legendary Mud Bug

          Crayfish, also known as crawfish, Mud Bug, order Decapoda, are freshwater CRUSTACEAN arthropods that look like small lobsters. They comprise the families Astacidae, Cambaridae, and Parastacidae. It resembles a small lobster. Crayfish range in length from 2 to 40 cm (0.8 to 16 in). Their thin, hard exoskeleton is usually brownish green, but may also be white, pink, or blue. They live in streams and ponds throughout the world, hiding under stones during the day and feeding at night. They eat decaying plant and animal matter and small fish, snails, insect larvae, and worms.

          In the United States their use as food is limited chiefly to areas around the Mississippi River basin. Its cooked flesh is considered a delicacy. A thick soup, crayfish bisque, is a popular Louisiana dish. The Cajuns make many delicious prepared dishes, as well as boiling them and serving them in a large bucket.

          Now, if you've never eaten crawfish before, I "garntee" ya'll, it will be an experience of a lifetime!

          When the waitress brought this bucket to my table, I just "sorta sat there and stared" at these things for awhile. Finally,the courage came to me. I asked, "Maam, can you please tell me how to eat them".

          She didn't look a bit surprised, and for sure, I bet I wasn't the first who didn't know what to do with "them". As she firmly grasped one of those "mudbugs" between her thumb and index finger, she looked at me and with a smirk on her face, she said, "Now, Honey-Child, It's that simple."

          Sure, easy for you to say, Maam.

          "You just put the head in your mouth and bite it off, and suck that sweet meat out of the body".

          She didn't have to say more. That did it! I wasn't about to touch it with a "ten-foot pole".

          I don't know how long I must have sat there, just making "eye-ball" contact, with those bugs, but since I was getting pretty hungry and there was no hamburger stand in sight, I blessed the chow that I was about to receive and "dug-in."

          Believe it or not, I managed to eat an entire bucket of those mudbug critters,commonly known as crawfish, all by myself, As long as I didn't look them "square-in the-eye" and kept remembering the price I had paid for them, I managed, somehow, with the grace of the good Lord, to survive through it all, and you know what.......

          It was not as bad as it seemed. In fact, they were rather "tasty little morsels,"

          but.....I haven't eaten them since.

          MULATTES FAMOUS CAJUN FOOD AND DANCING
          WHAT IS A CRAWFISH?
          MORE CRAWFISH LINKS