Cajun Crawfish Pie
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Live Crawfish
When you are ready for a boil, you need to invite me over first and then pick up some live crawfish. In Louisiana we expect them to be available throughout the season, but in most states it can be very difficult to find live ones. Every year though, the availability of live crawfish in every state is becoming more common. This brings up a few good questions about live crawfish.
How Do Farmers Keep Their Crawfish Alive?
That is a good question. When you go to your local seafood store and buy a sack of live crawfish, you may notice that nearly every one of them is alive and well. If this is not the case for you, you are not getting a quality product. How in the world do these suckers stay alive in a sack for so long? They have to travel from the water, to the store, into your truck or car, to your home, and then they finally lose the battle in the pot. How is this possible for a creature that lives in the water? The secret lies in their gills. Crawfish have adapted a really cool ability to extract oxygen from the atmosphere through their gills. As long as their gills remain moist, they can get all of the oxygen they need without being submerged. Therefore, the answer is that farmers keep the crawfish alive and they arrive live (that rhymes!) at your crawfish boil by staying wet. As long as they are sprayed down with water really well, the suckers can live on land for a long time. This ability is necessary for our little friends because sometimes nature isn't so accommodating for them. Just imagine what would happen to them when their pond or bayou dried up, if they didn't have this cool ability. Neat huh? Another trick that is used is that they are often cooled down before being shipped. As long as the temperature is very cold, crawfish will start shutting down their circulatory system as a natural reaction. This lowers their activity, and the amount of oxygen that is needed to sustain them.
How Many Live Crawfish Come In A Sack?
Another great question! It depends really. You see, the number of crawfish in a sack depends on the size of the critters. If they are small (this is very common outside of the prime season, and in other states that raise inferior crayfish), then it takes a lot more to fill the sack. The sacks that they come in are usually vegetable or onion sacks, and they normally hold around 30 to 40 pounds of crawfish per sack. This number can vary a lot, depending on the supplier. In Louisiana, our little friends are usually around 3" to 4" long. Sometimes they get an inch or two bigger, but that's about all. In Australia they have some crawfish species that get to be over 16" long and weigh over 8 pounds each! While you would think that these must be lobsters, they're not. Getting back to the question, there really isn't a good answer for this question. It depends on too many factors (species, amount of water in them, size, etc.). The next time I buy a sack I will count them to report here. If you beat me to it, will you email us?