Home / April

A little reason to celebrate

National Crawfish Day

Food · April 17

A day for crawfish, the small freshwater crustaceans boiled by the sackful and eaten with corn, potatoes and plenty of seasoning.

National Crawfish Day falls on Saturday, April 17, 2027. That is 172 days away.

Crawfish look like lobsters that someone shrank to fit in a hand. They are freshwater crustaceans, living in rivers, ponds, ditches and flooded fields, and in much of the South they are also dinner.

The classic way to eat them is a boil. A big pot of water gets seasoned hard, often with cayenne, garlic, lemon and salt, and the crawfish go in with red potatoes, corn on the cob and sometimes sausage or mushrooms. When everything is done, it gets poured out across a table lined with newspaper. Plates are optional.

Eating them takes a little practice. You twist the tail from the head, peel back a ring or two of shell, and pinch the tail meat free. Some people also suck the juices from the head, which is where much of the seasoning collects. The first dozen go slowly. After that, hands find a rhythm and conversation keeps pace.

Crawfish also turn up in kitchen dishes that use just the tail meat: étouffée, a rich smothered stew served over rice, as well as gumbo, bisque and fried crawfish po' boys. Cooked crawfish turn bright red, the same way lobster and shrimp do.

They go by several names depending on who is talking, including crayfish, crawdads and mudbugs. The last one comes from their habit of digging burrows in soft mud, sometimes leaving little chimneys of mud at the entrance.

Ways to celebrate

• Try a crawfish boil at a local Cajun or seafood restaurant.
• Cook a pot of crawfish étouffée over rice at home.
• Learn the twist and pinch method for peeling a crawfish tail.
• Look for mud chimneys near a creek or wet field.
• Share a pile of boiled crawfish with friends over a newspaper-covered table.

Dates

All national days on April 17

Also on April 17

• National Cheeseball Day
• Bat Appreciation Day
• National Haiku Poetry Day
• Record Store Day
• Blah Blah Blah Day
• National Kickball Day

Categories: Food days