Taste of Louisiana

Michael Arnone's Crawfish Fest will keep you coming back for more.

Even with the promise of rain, as my husband Charles and I walked through the gates of the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, for the 19th annual Crawfish Fest two weeks ago, we were excited.

The pulse of high-energy Delta music was in the air and the fragrance of smoky grills immediately drew us toward the field of food vendors. We arrived at 12:30, and having skipped breakfast, were appropriately ravenous.

My father, his wife, Constance, and their 14-year-old foster daughter, Natasha, had yet to arrive, so I waited near the entrance gate, fighting the impulse to wander into the inviting scents and begin the down-home “taste fest” I had planned.

Fifteen minutes passed. “We’ll find them,” Charles assured me. “Let’s just go grab a burger or something until they get here.” Only at a summer barbecue is a burger a snack instead of a meal. But, I didn’t want a burger. Not when my senses had been so deliciously piqued by the promise of New Orleans’s famous eats: jambalaya, shrimp Creole, a variety of po’ boys, and the bayou’s much-loved crustacean: crawfish.

Luckily my dad and his crew came along before we got into serious sampling. Unlike some of the other guests, many who had pitched tents for Woodstock-style stays, we roamed freely—a group of hungry nomads—from one food vendor to the next eating as we went.

For us the music, the primary draw for others, was just a pleasant extra. (Sorry music lovers; we came for the food. But, for the record, notables such as Roddie Romero & the Hub City All Stars, Little Freddie Kng, Guitar Shorty, Donna The Buffalo, and the Swingset Mamas appeared on the four stages throughout the day.)

What a feast we had. My 75-year-old New Orleans-born dad was eager for a taste of home. Just like Michael Arnone had been in 1989, when he conceived the idea of bringing some “nawlins” flavor to Jersey. The first Crawfish Boil had about 70 people and 300 pounds of crawfish. Today, the annual guest list for the early June event numbers in the hundreds and the crawfish count is literally in the tons.

I started with jambalaya—a one-pot mess of chicken, sausage, tomatoes, seafood, and rice that’s spicier and heartier than your average stew. I sampled alligator sausage for the first time (I must confess it took me a while to get passed the visual of what I was eating). This meat was like drinking a shot of Tabasco—I followed it with a water chaser.

Next I had Creole shrimp, then a catfish po’ boy. My dad feasted on crawfish.

I’d had crawfish only once before, when my father and his father made a newspaper tablecloth over a picnic table in my grandfather’s Teaneck backyard, pulled up chairs, poured out a bucket of crawfish, and spent the afternoon cracking them open and sucking them down.

“It’s really the only way to eat them,” my father says.

He is right; you can’t hurry through a crawfish meal. Each of these lobster-looking creatures nets only about a thimble of the sweet tasty meat—they were made to eat on leisurely summer afternoons, while shooting the breeze with your friends.

Watching Natasha have her first taste of the bayou added another element of fun to the day. She giggled through the spicy foods (which was basically everything—except the burgers and fries), but fell in love with the beignets. She couldn’t wait to get home to tell her friends about the fancy new “funnel cake” she had. Café du Monde (New Orleans' premiere spot for the pastry) would be proud.

As for the pralines (pure sugar and pa-cans, not p-cans), my dad’s absolute favorite treat, the festival’s cooks did not disappoint, and my father went home with a pocketful “for later.” 

Yesterday for Father’s Day, I used Michael Arnone’s recipe and whipped up another batch of pralines for him. They were pretty easy to make—just never turn your back on a simmering pot of sugar and milk, and keep stirring.

My dad was thrilled: “These are delicious, just like the one’s I used to get in New Orleans.”

Thanks, Michael Arnone. We’ll all see you next year. 
   

Tags: Food | Sussex County | New Orleans | Augusta | Louisiana | crawfish | jambalaya

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