16,000 pounds of mudbugs

last weekend, king of crawfish aka jim gossen of louisiana foods threw a crawfish boil of colossal proportions for the OTC kick-off party held at U of H every year. the feast of crusteans involved a 16,000 pound order of live louisiana crawfish.

when jim invited me to come by and check out his custom crawfish-cooking mechanism, it was an offer i simply couldn't refuse. this contraption enabled him to dish out 5,000 pounds of crawfish an hour! i walked away in complete awe. and after a six-month plus hiatus from my blog, jim finally gave me a subject that i couldn't wait to report back on.

Take a look at this set-up.

step 1: CLEANING. bags of pre-washed crawfish were dumped into washing tanks for a final rinse. dead crawfish floated to the top of the water and were hand-picked out.

conveyor belts pulled live crawfish from the bottom of the tank and deposited them into huge metal baskets. there were 2 of these machines running simultaneously.

step 2: COOKING. metal baskets filled with crawfish were lifted by 2,000 lb electric hoists and dropped into large boilers.

crawfish were cooked for 4-5 minutes in one of five boilers of seasoned water containing dry and liquid crab boil, and jim's secret ingredient, tabasco mash.

a box of tabasco mash, dried leftover sediment from the Tabasco sauce-making process.

step 3: electric hoists pulled metal baskets out of boiling water and hot, cooked crawfish were dumped into metal chutes where they got a second coating of dry seasonings--louisiana foods' proprietary blend of salt, cayenne powder, lemon, celery powder, and onion powder.

step 4: the bottom of the metal chute was opened and crawfish were transferred into carts and wheeled into the party tent.

crawfish stayed hot in huge, insulated storage containers until guests were served. corn and potatoes were served separately from smaller ice chests.

the stats:

people: 15,000

food: 16,000 lbs. crawfish (2 18-foot trucks worth), 2,000 lbs. potatoes, 8,000 ears corn

powered by: 227 gallons propane

boy, would i love to throw one of these shindigs for me and all of my friends (heck, and their friends too). so how much would it cost to throw one of these events? a ballpark figure: $60,000. when i win the lottery, jim will be one of the first people i call... and you're all invited.

photos courtesy of jim gossen

crawfish in dec?

is it just me or does crawfish season seem to start earlier and earlier every year? i heard rumors last week that mardi gras grill already had crawfish. a quick phone call over there confirmed the rumor and i quickly organized a lunch there this week.

the chowhounds and i eagerly arrived at mardi gras with visions of mudbugs and getting down and dirty together only to find out that they ran out the day before. i had a hard time accepting the news and talking my belly into picking something off the regular menu. disheartened, i finally settled on the grilled boudin and a side salad. determined that the quest wasn't over yet, i called ragin cajun who confirmed they had boiled crawfish in.

a quick conversation about it led us to scarf down our lunch and head straight for ragin cajun. hey, there's a reason we're called the "chowhounds!" we started with 3 pounds.

the crawfish were of smallish size. of course i knew that this was something we should expect pre-season. we poured the crawfish out onto the red plastic trays set out for us, sprinkled a generous dose of "slap yo mama" on top, and dug in. i sucked my first head. something wasn't right. the smell of crab boil was too overwhelming. the taste? the taste wasn't really there. i realized right away that they were using concentrated liquid crab boil and probably not much of anything else like lemons, onions, garlic that would give it more dimensional flavors. we ordered another 3 pounds and switched to oysters and some pretty heavy drinking as happy hour just started.

year after year, people keep telling me they like ragin cajun the best for crawfish. every season i am talked into going at least once and each time i leave disappointed. it's official this time. if i'm walking into ragin cajun from now on, it's for 25 cent oyster happy hour and cheap drink specials. i'll try to patiently wait for mardi gras to get their next shipment of mudbugs in and i'll head to big woodrow's during prime time crawdad season. i can hang out with friends, throw back some beer, and pretend that i'm watching basketball. but really the yummy crawfish will keep me occupied enough. i also plan on checking out the crawfish spots in chinatown this year.