CRAWDAD vs EAGLE

[Roy]

At small town Baptist church in Louisiana, back in the 60s, we had an elderly preacher filling in for our regular pastor. He made a comment about the Bald Eagle as the national emblem. He believed that more thought should have gone into the selection process. For example, if the eagle and a crawdad were on a train track and the train began bearing down on them, the eagle would fly off whereas the crawdad would turn and fight to the bitter end.

 

[tyndale1946]

At small town Baptist church in Louisiana, back in the 60s, we had an elderly preacher filling in for our regular pastor. He made a comment about the Bald Eagle as the national emblem. He believed that more thought should have gone into the selection process. For example, if the eagle and a crawdad were on a train track and the train began bearing down on them, the eagle would fly off whereas the crawdad would turn and fight to the bitter end.

I'm not going to confront an eagle he is a bird of prey but a crawdad?... He can fight all he wants to but he will still end up as bait or gumbo... Brother Glen

 

[kyredneck]

I'm not going to confront an eagle he is a bird of prey but a crawdad?... He can fight all he wants to but he will still end up as bait or gumbo... Brother Glen

I got me an idee one time, to cook up a mess of creek crawdads (about a third the size of commercial crawdads); so me, my wife, and brother took a bait seine over to Howard's Creek and seined literally a 5 gallon bucket full of creek crawdads, most not much bigger than your thumb. My brother and I sat on the porch, twisted the tails off and squeezed the meat out of each one into a bowl. For all that work we may have ended up with a pound of crawdad meat. Live and learn. We'd got a lot more meat if we had seined creek perch out of the deeper holes.

Anyway, dropped those crawdad tails into a sauce pan of boiling water, took maybe 45 seconds and they turned snow white and done and was delicious with a butter sauce. If ever I do that again we'll cook them whole and let everybody fend for themselves getting the meat out.

 

[tyndale1946]

I got me an idee one time, to cook up a mess of creek crawdads (about a third the size of commercial crawdads); so me, my wife, and brother took a bait seine over to Howard's Creek and seined literally a 5 gallon bucket full of creek crawdads, most not much bigger than your thumb. My brother and I sat on the porch, twisted the tails off and squeezed the meat out of each one into a bowl. For all that work we may have ended up with a pound of crawdad meat. Live and learn. We'd got a lot more meat if we had seined creek perch out of the deeper holes.

Anyway, dropped those crawdad tails into a sauce pan of boiling water, took maybe 45 seconds and they turned snow white and done and was delicious with a butter sauce. If ever I do that again we'll cook them whole and let everybody fend for themselves getting the meat out.

Well in my meat eating days I would be smacking my lips but was your pet eagle perched there watching the proceedings?... Brother Glen

 

[kyredneck]

Well in my meat eating days I would be smacking my lips but was your pet eagle perched there watching the proceedings?... Brother Glen

Actually we do get an occasional Osprey from the river that takes bluegill from our pond. A while back one perched up in a tree out front while we watched it eat the fish. Cool.

 

[Roy]

Everybody everywhere seems to be eating crawdads these days, but when I was growing up in the northern part of Louisiana, crawdads were something that people in South Louisiana ate. I had never eaten any until the 1970s when my boss threw a big party in the company parking lot for his customers.

He bought six 30 gallon steel trash cans and had a machine shop fabricate large strainers to fit the trash cans. For the party, he bought 600 pounds of live crawdads and 200 lbs. of shrimp. The trash cans served as boiling pots, a gas burner under each one. The strainers were loaded with shrimp or crawdads and lowered into receptacle of boiling water seasoned with "Crab Boil" and cooked. Like Kyredneck implied, it took a lot of crawdads and a lot of work to get a little bit of meat.

 

[kyredneck]

crawdads were something that people in South Louisiana

Did you know that those are subterranean crawdads (the kind that makes mud chimneys) and not the creek kind? They're at least twice the size of creek crawdads.

Had an old Cajon worked for me many years ago and he joked about 'sucking crawdad heads' many times.

 

[Deacon]

I don’t remember ever eating crawdads but I’d imagine the experience is somewhat like eating hard shelled crab.

We cover the outdoor table with newspaper and spend the day cracking the shells eating, drinking, and talking.

After finishing the day of cracking and eating crab, we’d clean up and then go out for dinner.

Rob

 

[kyredneck]

You

I’d imagine the experience is somewhat like eating hard shelled crab.

The creek crawdads we did were superior in flavor to lobster. IMO. Just not worth the effort.