Tasty Little Mudbugs by Abraham Felix

You are sweating profusely. Your lips are burning. Your tongue is on fire. Your chest and stomach are inflamed. The carbonation in the drink you keep swigging from is only making it worse, but you don’t care. You just grab another one and begin to unclothe it in your haste to that incredible little piece of meat inside. Though this probably sounds like some sort of adult activity, even the youngest Louisianan has probably had this experience. I’m of course talking about the great Louisianian tradition of crawfish boils.
When great cooking comes to mind, in my opinion, Louisiana is the best in the world, or at least in the south. There is a magic to cooking here in Louisiana that can make even crawfish, the dirtiest little critters, or mudbugs if you will, taste like a little piece of heaven. Not only did some genius long ago discover that boiling crawfish in herbs, spices and seasonings would make them delectable, but then he or she decided that was not enough. In addition to the crawfish, someone added things like corn and potatoes and sausage. Even recently I heard of people putting things like mushrooms, lemon, garlic and even cauliflower in that pot along with all the other things.
Now no decent Louisiana native can stand to prepare and eat something like this alone. He or she will probably call up a friend or ten and throw a good ol’ get-together and pig out. At least that’s how I like to think the great event called a crawfish boil started.
Of course, recently Louisiana was renamed the unhealthiest state, taking that honor from Mississippi. I say I’m glad to have that title back. People say the things that taste good are the worse for you. To me this means if you want to eat something that tastes great, like all our food here, you’ve got to accept the bad health that can result from it. People say southern hospitality is second to none. With crawfish boils, that definitely rings true. Events like crawfish boils show the strong community ties of Louisiana and the neighboring states.
In addition to the community ties of the mudbug, they also represent a multi-million dollar industry for our state. Most of the crawfish worldwide is harvested in Louisiana. So while many people around the country may knock us for our school systems, infrastructure, generally bad health and otherwise, they certainly can’t knock us for our food and ability to live and “Laissez les bon temps roule.”