Celebrating Spring Southern Style

Pouring for the masses

As previously mentioned, down here in the South spring is in full force.

To take advantage of the season and warm weather, friends from church hosted a crawfish boil the first weekend in April.

I’ve been to the Crawdad Hole more times than the Chicago Cubs have won the World Series, but this was my first real crawfish boil party at a friend’s house.

I had high expectations for a number of reasons:

• Our friends grew up in and around a region dedicated to Cajun and creole cooking.
• They met and attended college in Louisiana, a state that knows a thing or two about mud bugs and how to throw a party.
• The mash for the boil was a special delivery, driven up from the Tabasco plant, made from the discarded peppers used in Tabasco sauce.
• They bought and transported mass quantities of live crawdads from Lafayette, Louisiana to Jackson, Mississippi.

And like Babe Ruth calling his shot, they hit one out of the ballpark. We could taste their superior crawfish boil skills.

In addition to the usual crawfish, potatoes and corn, they also added mushrooms, lemons and garlic cloves to the pots. The mash was super spicy and everything thrown in the boil was incredibly hot, but we couldn’t stop eating. By the end of the night no one suffered from any sinus issues.

It was entertaining to observe the full process and then dive into a fresh pot poured out onto the communal serving table.  Besides digging into the bounty, we enjoyed sharing beautiful day with friends while waiting for the next round.

Southerners know how to throw a party, and if a crawfish boil is involved, I’m game to celebrate spring as long as possible.