Mud Bugs

Here in Houston, there's a custom of eating crawfish in the springtime. People get together and make a big party of it all the time. They'll boil up huge masses of crawfish and eat them in their backyard with friends, or at a restaurant, or with their church group, and so on.

I've wanted very much to participate in this tradition, but I've feared that I might be allergic to crawfish. I know for a fact that I'm allergic to shrimp, and crawfish are pretty similar creatures.

It's hard to know for sure though. I could go get an test at a doctor's office, but that would cost a decent amount of money. I could just buy some crawfish from the grocery store when they advertise them, but they sell them in large quantities. It wouldn't be good to buy a huge number of crawfish only to find that I couldn't get past the first one.

A little while ago, my daughter went with a friend to a seafood restaurant and got a bunch of crawfish, but I couldn't try those either, because they cook all their seafood in the same place, so it could be tainted with shrimp. It's not a legitimate test, therefore.

At last, my chance to determine the state of my allergies arrived. My wife's church had an activity planned. We were having a crawfish boil, and everyone was invited. That meant, I could try some crawfish, see if they triggered my allergy, and stop eating if they did or keep eating if they didn't without wasting a lot of money on the attempt.

Just in case, I brought my wife's bottle of allergy pills. It's supposed to help mitigate an allergic reaction if you take a Benadryl while it's going on. We had the off-brand generic version, but it works just as well.

It was a really great environment at the church for the crawfish boil. They set everything up on the far edge of the parking lot, and the tall trees on the edge of the property were already providing shade to the whole area by the time the party started.

There was a band performing for us during the gathering as well. Some of the older folks complained that they were too loud, but I enjoyed them. They were playing all the music I loved from my high school and college days. Although, if they really wanted to make the atmosphere correct, they should have been playing zydeco.

Before they started serving the crawfish, they had a critter crawl.

There was a whole bucket of live crawfish that had yet to be put in the pot, and kids could choose one, put it in the center of the chalk circle they'd drawn on the pavement, and then whoever's racer left the circle first won.

The kids didn't really seem all that interested in the race, though. They just wanted to play with the mud bugs. They all wandered around the parking lot holding a crawfish in their hand, looking at them and waving them around.

I grabbed one myself, and got a picture with it.

The allergies don't cause me problems unless I put the stuff in my mouth, so I felt safe and secure holding one in my hand. My son, on the other hand, should have had more supervision. He came walking up to me and my wife with a crawfish in his hand. He was holding it right, by the back, safe and secure, but I think he must have been poking at it with his fingers from his other hand, because it had clamped down on the tip of his ring finger, and was not letting go.

He started to cry as he walked up, complaining that it hurt and he couldn't get it off. So, I helped him pry its claws open to free him. He had wanted to come over and have me take a picture of him with his little friend, but now the picture was kind of ruined, because he couldn't stop crying. It pinched him pretty good. It even drew blood from his poor fingertip.

I told him he could get his revenge by devouring loads of its compatriots, but that didn't interest him much. He doesn't like crawfish. He tried them when my daughter brought them home, but just barely. They reminded him too much of cockroaches to to put them in his mouth. I guess they earned the name of mud bugs as far as he was concerned.

After that drama was over, it was time to start eating. I wanted to make sure that I was safe, though. I saw some shrimp on the table. I wanted to be sure that there was no cross contamination, so I hunted down our chef to confirm. 

He was from Louisiana, and had been cooking crawfish like this for around thirty years. Someone later told me he was apparently famous for his blend of Cajun spices that he put on the crawfish. And no, the shrimp was not cooked together with the crawfish. It would be a legitimate test of my allergies.

Our Cajun chef brought out the crawfish and dumped them on a table covered with a plastic table cloth, and it was on.

We grabbed plates, and dished up. A lot of the folks there were old pros at this, but I'm a long way from that. I daintily grabbed two crawfish for my plate. I figured that if they were safe, I could get more afterward.

We sat down to eat, and I turned to the pros to educate me on just how I was supposed to eat these things. They explained to me how you grab the tail, and twist right at the base of it, then pull. It removes most of the meat from the body. Then you can pull the meat out of the tail, clean any impurities that may still be clinging to it, and then you're ready to eat.

I took a bite, chewed and swallowed. My allergies aren't immediate, it takes a while for them to appear, so I sat and waited. I ate a little bit more, and it seemed like I might be okay. I was struggling with the cleaning part. I couldn't find what I was supposed to remove. I also was having trouble yanking the meat from the tail. I tried my second crawfish.

At about this point, I started to notice a tingling in my throat...was that because of the Cajun spices on the crawfish or was it allergies starting to emerge? I swallowed a time or two, checking the feel of my throat. Was it allergies? Was I just inventing it with my mind psychosomatically? Did I fear the allergies, so my mind invented them?

Then the inside of my ears started to itch. No, that definitely wasn't the spices. It was official, I am allergic to crawfish the same way I am to shrimp. I was pretty bummed. What a shame it was to sit for the rest of the crawfish boil and just watch everyone else eat. It looked fun, and the meat had been pretty tasty...the little of it that I had eaten.

I took two Benadryls to make sure that the allergic reaction didn't get any worse, and had to satisfy myself with the fact that at least now I knew. I am allergic to shellfish. I never need to try lobster or anything else to find out if I can handle it. I just gotta skip it all. What a bummer.