"You gotta love someone to cook them crawfish bisque," my husband, Ed's, mother used to tell him back in Baton Rouge, La., where he grew up.
I believe her. I've watched him in awe and admiration as he dumps out sacks of the divine little crustaceans onto the kitchen counter and begins this intense, daylong ritual.
One by one, he breaks the tail from the crawfish head, peeling off theshell and pulling out the sweet, tender tail meat. He tediously salvages the yellowish fat from the head, stuffs the tiny remaining shells with a savory crawfish dressing and simmers them in the chestnut- colored roux, thinned with homemade stock.
By the time he is finished, his fingers are aching. Sweat is pouring from his brow. I savor each bite of his sumptuous masterpiece and lavish him with compliments.
Fortunately, there are hundreds of less taxing ways to take advantage of crawfish while they're at their seasonal peak. Let them float in a spicy sauce thickened with roux - the browned flour and fat mixture essential to Louisiana cooking - and serve over rice for crawfish etouffee. Stuff them in casings with rice and pepper dressing for a downright naughty boudin (sausage). Or just boil them in spiced water with potatoes and sweet corn.
"I fell in love with crawfish when I first arrived in New Orleans 15 years ago and Mrs. Brennan (Ella Brennan of Brennan's restaurant) introduced me to crawfish boil," says New Orleans chef Emeril Lagasse, who now uses them in everything from savory pies to creamy pasta dishes at his acclaimed Emeril's and NOLA restaurants. "My favorite thing to do is to have a crawfish boil on a Sunday afternoon with my family."
The tricky part is not the cooking but the peeling and eating. In fact, at the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival in the town that the Louisiana Legislature has proclaimed "the crawfish capital of the world" (the 36th annual event took place early this month), crawfish eating is a competitive sport; the record is 33 1/2 pounds consumed in one hour.
"You break off the tail like a lobster, pinch the tail, remove the shell and pull the meat out," explains chef/owner Billy McKinnon of McKinnon's Louisiane Restaurant in Buckhead.
The test of a true devotee, he adds, is "deciding if you're gonna suck the heads and get the good fat out, or if you're gonna be dainty about it and pick the fat out with your finger."
It's that rich fat that gives crawfish a sweeter flavor and more tender texture than shrimp. Serious Cajun and creole cooks consider it instrumental in seasoning gumbos, etouffees, stews and sauces.
Chef Leah Chase of Dooky Chase in New Orleans enhances her specialties with a crawfish butter, made by simmering butter and crawfish fat with crawfish heads and peelings. "You get a lot of flavor from the shells, too," she says.
Besides the classic creole recipes, many cooks like to use those tails in less traditional ways. Chef Leslie Dore of Cajun Kitchen on Marietta Street even bakes them in a cheesy corn bread.
But to her, crawfish is hardly a delicacy.
"As a child, we used to catch them in ditches," says Dore, who grew up in St. Martinville, La., and moved to Atlanta a year ago. "We never thought they were special."
|  Crawfish are king of the Louisiana bayou. (Illustration by Walter Cumming.)
Recipes: Cookin' up crawfish. Tips for cooking crawfish. |