Cajun Crawfish Pie
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What Are Crawfish?
That may be the smartest question I have heard in a long time. What are crawfish? Let's talk about those silly little bugs that taste so dang good.
First, have you noticed that crawfish look a lot like lobsters? Both of them are red. They both have some monster looking claws. Their bodies are shaped the same. They both have a big tail, and they both have a shell. The big difference between the two is that lobsters are way bigger! The reason they look so similar is that crawfish and lobsters are sort of like cousins. On the evolutionary tree, the two are very much so related.
Now then, just what are crawfish, scientifically speaking? Yankees call them mud bugs, crayfish, crawdads, or several other incorrect names. Cajuns know them by their true name. Scientists (those sticklers) say that they are a member of a group of animals known as decapod crustaceans, just like crabs, lobsters, and prawns. The reason for this is that they have 19 body segments, the two main ones known as the cephalothorax and the abdomen. The fatty abdomen is the part that the Cajuns (and anyone else with a brain) are after, although the heads can be pretty dang juicy as well! Crawfish are freshwater crustaceans that breathe through gills (just like fish).How do crawfish grow? Very carefully! Seriously, they have a hard shell, so growing isn't very easy for our little friends. In order for them to grow, crawfish have to shed their hard shells and replace them with new ones along the way. This process is called moulting, where they drop their hard exoskeletons and replace them. When they are little babies, crawfish may moult every day or two. As they get older, they may only moult every month or so. When they first moult and lose their hard shell, their new shell is very soft. While this is great for those os us that like to eat them, this is a very dangerous time for our little pals because their natural protection (a hard shell) is gone. Surprisingly, their biggest threat comes from other crawfish that will attack them without their hard shell! After they moult, they actually eat their old shell to get the calcium for it. This calcium will help them to grow their new shell, that is just a tad bigger than the old one.
The best answer though for what a crawfish is comes from my Cajun friend Thibodeaux. According to Thibodeaux, "That's one of them little things that you throw into a pot with some corn and potatoes." You know what? I think my friend knows more about crawfish than them scientists!