Author Pauline Baird Jones relates her introduction to New Orleans cuisine in this fun guest blog post

The following is a guest blog by Pauline Baird Jones, whose book, “Worry Beads: The Big Uneasy 4,” arrives today (Dec. 1, 2018). She loves to share interesting things and memories about her time living in New Orleans, including this Crawfish 101 lesson below (learning how many calories are in crawfish was inspiring!). If you want to read more or purchase a book, follow her website by clicking here.

My Dinner is Watching Me

By Pauline Baird Jones

A few days after our arrival in New Orleans, we went to a company dinner. For a gal from Wyoming, it felt more like an initiation than a dinner. It was a “buffet,” so we grabbed plates and got in line. First up, they added corn and potatoes, then a SCOOP of crawfish, another of shrimp, and then a crab on top. 

All the food still had eyes, so it felt like they were watching me and waiting to see what I’d do. We proceeded to the tables, covered in paper (for a reason, we found out) and sat down across from a family already diving into their food. 

I lifted my gaze from all the eyes, just in time to see a toddler sucking on a crawfish head. O.O

We lived in New Orleans for 18 years and I came to love crawfish, but I never really warmed up to shucking them myself or sucking the head. But, I have seen real pros go after them and wow. Real skill. 

Crawfish look a bit like lobsters, but the meat is tenderer though chewier than shrimp. As far as the taste, it’s mostly from the butter and Cajun spices that they’re boiled in. You can find them in the mud of freshwater bayous which is why they’re often called mudbugs. Also, some people call them crawdads. In 1983, the crawfish was designated the Official Crustacean of Louisiana. The Bayou State was the first to choose an Official Crustacean. Five other states followed Louisiana’s lead and picked an official crustacean: 

Maryland—the Blue Crab

Oregon—the Dungeness Crab

Alabama—the Brown Shrimp

Maine —the Lobster, and 

Texas—the Texas Gulf Shrimp  

But, let’s get back to crawfish. Did you know they have eight legs: four of their legs are made for walking, the other four are used for swimming. What’s also weird is that crawfish walk forward but they swim backward. If they lose one of their legs it’s okay, because they can just grow a new leg. They molt, which means they shed their shells, up to 15 times. Additionally, they nearly double in size with each molt.

Before the Acadians (Cajuns) settled in the swamps of Louisiana, the Native Americans who lived in the swampland caught bushels of crawfish to eat. They’d bait reeds with venison, then they’d stick them in the water. When they pulled out the reeds, crawfish were attached to the bait. 

Louisiana crawfish weren’t caught commercially until 1880 when a harvest of 23,400 pounds was brought in at a value of $2,140. By 1908, Louisiana’s crawfish production was at 88,000 pounds, and valued at $3,600. Nowadays, Louisiana produces about 90 percent of the crawfish eaten in the United States. 

For crawfish caught in the wild, Louisiana’s crawfish season typically runs from mid-January through early-July. The peak months are March, April, and May. Farm-raised crawfish are available most of the year. The annual New Orleans Crawfish festival for 2019 will be held in April and, of course, it includes an eating contest and cookoff. 

The tiny morsel of supple meat in the crawfishes’ tails is delicious. Most people pinch off the tail, squeeze out the meat, and eat it, leaving the head behind. But for some people the heads are yummy as well. You put them to your lips and suck slowly. Crawfish is a healthy food, they’re low in fat, saturated fat, trans fat, and calories, plus they’re 80 percent protein and have no carbs. One pound of crawfish only has 327 calories, so you can eat till you pop at the next crawfish boil. 

I’ll be honest. I never cared that crawfish were healthy. I just liked their yummy factor. Lol

Perilously yours,

Pauline

P.S. Funny story. A friend of ours from New Orleans went to school out west. A leader there found out he was from NO and liked crawfish, so invited him over to have some at his house. Intrigued by this, our friend asked the leader how they cooked their crawfish. Leader responded that they collected a dozen or so from a local ditch and tossed them on the grill. Then leader asked our friend how he cooked them.

Our friend responded, “Well, first off, we don’t count ‘em.”

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.

Irwin pens history of crawfish in Louisiana

            I vividly remember the first time I visited the Crawfish Festival. I owned a tin box of a Datsun and piled a group of my friends inside for the ride from LSU to Breaux Bridge. In addition to the great music and dancing, we ate boiled crawfish from plastic tubular bags while sitting on a curb, the juice dripping down our arms. On the way home we stopped at Pat’s in Henderson for more crawfish and libations, ending one of the most enjoyable days I had in college.

            Sam Irwin brought back those fun memories in his new book which tackles the history of our state’s mudbugs, “Louisiana Crawfish: A Succulent History of the CajunCrustacean,” published by The History Press. The book details how our love affair with crawfish began and really took off with the advent of the industry, its trials and heydays and enjoying crawfish today. There’s also plenty on that now famous Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge, designated the “Crawfish Capital of the World” at the town’s 1959 centennial.

            The book is full of great photos and includes some wonderful recipes, some from historic places such as the original étouffée recipe of Mrs. Charles Hebert and Aline Guidry. It’s a great tribute to those who started it all, making the current crawfish fisheries a $210 million industry.

            Irwin is the product of a “mixed marriage,” his father being a north Louisiana native and his mother from Cajun Country. The Baton Rouge freelance journalist has worked for the Louisiana Market Bulletin and the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry.

            Upcoming book events for “Louisiana Crawfish” include a talk and signing at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, at Octavia Books in New Orleans, 2 p.m. Saturday, March 22, at Barnes & Noble Baton Rouge, 7 p.m. March 27 at the Thensted Center in Grand Coteau, titled “Stories of Crawfish and The Way Things Used to Be” as part of the Festival of Words, and at noon March 28 at LSU-Eunice.

Heart Wide Open

            Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is known for her distinctive Southern-style humor in books such as “Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On” and “Sue Ellen’s GirlAin’t Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy!” She also pens the popular blog, “All Things Southern” and is the host of the weekly radio broadcast, “All Things Southern LIVE.”

            The latest book from the Lake Providence author comes after she questioned the depth of her relationship with God, discovering that she was a good church-going Christian but lacked the deep feeling that others were experiencing. The result is an interesting new book, “Heart Wide Open: Trading Mundane Faith for anExuberant Life with Jesus,” that not only encourages readers to find God but to develop an intimate experience. As with her other books, the style is friendly, engaging and all things Southern.

            For more information on Tomlinson’s books and to check out her blog, hear podcasts, watch videos and other fun offerings from this versatile woman, visit http://www.belleofallthingssouthern.com/

             Tomlinson signs “Heart Wide Open” from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, at Every Occasion, 703 Prairie St. in Winnsboro and on March 25 at the Barnes & Noble
in Shreveport.

New releases

            Clifton Taulbert, author of the bestseller “Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored,” has published a memoir, “The Invitation,” chronicling the transformative experience Taulbert had in accepting an invitation to supper in Allendale, South Carolina. At a former plantation house the author confronts his childhood memories and wrestles with legacies of slavery and segregation that return to haunt him. Seeing cotton fields and shotgun shacks that remind him of his growing up years in racially segregated Mississippi, Taulbert realizes that he is now asked to cross racial barriers that no “colored” man could previously have crossed without dire consequences. Taulbert is the author of five other books and president and CEO of Roots Java Coffee and the founder and president of the Building Community Institute.

            C.S. Harris of Baton Rouge has just published the ninth book in her Sebastian St. Cyr Regency mystery series, “Why Kings Confess.”

            New York Times-bestselling series author Nevada Barr has sold an untitled Anna Pigeon novel, which features a National Park Service Ranger who solves mysteries in her job. The book will be published in the winter of 2016, a sequel to her 2014 novel “Destroyer Angel.” Barr lives in New Orleans.

Gueydan Bookstore

            A couple of weeks ago we wrote about a new bookstore in Abbeville named Kjuntales. This week we got the following letter: “Were you aware that our little bookstore in Vermilion Parish has been open and at the same location for 12 years?” asked Sean Gayle, who owns Patti’s Book Nook in Gueydan with James Gayle. “We sell new, used, rare, signed and local author’s works. We also sell art, original and limited prints of local artists.” The bookstore has more than 10,000 books in stock and online from four different independent bookstores at the website www.pattisbooknook.net. “We also have a presence on Amazon at www.amazon.com/shops/pattisbooknook,” Gayle added. “We are hidden in Gueydan, but we have a large reach since we ship around the world.

Library Book Sale

            The Friends of the Lafayette Public Library Spring Book Sale is this week, with the members’ preview sale from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday and the public sale from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Heymann Convention Center Ballroom. Gently used hardcover and paperback books will be sold by the inch and proceeds benefit the library. For information, call 501-9209.

Book events

            Native Irishman Brian O’Nuanain will offer Irish humor, storytelling, folklore, songs and literature from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. today, March 16, at South Regional Library.

            The Lafayette libraries will host a “Divergent” pin craft for teens from March Tuesday, March 18 through Thursday, March 20, 
at the Jefferson Street, North Regional and South Regional
 branches.

            Riders on the Orphan Train Performance will be from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, at the
Opelousas Public Library, 212 E. Grolee St, Opelousas. The Riders will present a 60-minute show through original storytelling, songwriting and video montage performance followed by 30 minutes of audience discussion. For more information, call (337) 948-3693 or visit http://www.ridersontheorphantrain.org.

            The Center for Louisiana Studies is hosting a screening and roundtable discussion on documentary filmmaking at 3 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in the Oliver Hall Auditorium, Room 112, on the UL campus in Lafayette. A second screening will be at 6 p.m. at the South Regional Library. The screenings will be of “McCrea 1971: The Story of Louisiana’s Forgotten Rock Festival” and “Louisiana During World War II” with filmmakers Jerry Sanson, Scott Caro and Bill Robison. Both events are free and open to the public.

            Judy Gentry, retired UL-Lafayette History Department faculty member will discuss “General Kirby-Smith's Leadership in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1863” at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in the Gaines Center Hallway, third floor of UL Dupré Library in Lafayette. A Q and A will follow the talk.

            Angela Carll, author of “Where Writers Wrote in New Orleans” will talk about the book and sign copies from noon to 2 p.m. Friday, March 21, at Tulane University Bookstore in New Orleans.

            Ragin’ Cajun Boxing Club coach Deirdre Gogarty, the first Irishwoman to become a world champion, will speak about her book, “My Call to the Ring,” and talk about how she came to Acadiana to live out her dream at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 22 at North Regional Library in Lafayette. A book sale and signing will follow the discussion.

            Kjuntales, Etc. bookstore will feature its second “Meet the Artist” night with Bryant Benoit from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, March 22, at 309 Pere Megret St. in Abbeville. For information on monthly activities, email owners Sheila Hebert Friedland and Mark Friedland at kjuntale66@yahoo.com or call (337) 740-0889.

Cheré Coen is the author of “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana,” both from The History Press, and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She teaches writing at UL-Lafayette’s Continuing Education. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.