10,000 Maniacs? More! Eating 10,000 Pounds of Crawdads at Crawfish Fest!

What started as a one-time party thrown by a Good Ole Southern boy who was homesick and spice-deprived, has turned into a Jersey exclusive paying homage to the saucy rhythms and spicy flavors of the bayou.

On May 31, June 1st and 2nd, Michael Arnone’s Twenty-Fourth Annual Crawfish Fest will return to the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta.

The festival brings together great food and more than twenty musical acts, including this year’s headliner, Grammy winning singer Aaron Neville.

In the mid-1980’s, when the Louisiana economy was in a slump, Arnone came to New Jersey seeking work as a union electrician. He stayed for nearly a decade.

In 1989, Arnone rented a picnic site in Butler, and 70 friends joined him to share 300 pounds of live crawfish shipped from Louisiana, a pot of jambalaya and the music of two foot-stomping bands.

After a number of years at Waterloo Village, the show is now at its third location. Last year 12,000 people attended, Arnone says ticket sales this year are running ahead of last year’s pace.

Arnone told me that the New Jersey Crawfish Fest is the only one he puts on, and as far as I could gather, he doesn’t seem to do much else the rest of the year at home in Killian, Louisiana.

But this month, he’s preparing to come north with his $30,000 propane-fueled crawfish-cooking rig and run the show.

Arnone says that “Carlton LaGrange, a good old boy from Baton Rouge, known for his restaurant and Southern Gulf catering,” is currently tending his 1000 acres of aquaculture ponds. The ponds will yield 10,000 pounds of live crawfish to be hauled in a refrigerated truck to the New Jersey Fairgrounds.

The truck, leaving Baton Rouge Wednesday, May 29, will also be loaded with 300 pounds of crawfish meat for etouffee, 550 pounds of shrimp and 300 pounds of shucked oysters (for po boys) and fresh-baked French bread from Leidenheimer Baking Company.

“It’s true-true-true New Orleans French bread,” Arnone says.

All weekend, revelers can dance to top Zydeco, Cajun, Delta blues and funk bands at one of the four stages, then line up at the food tents to grab a plate of traditional Cajun and Creole food, including boiled spicy crawfish.

Creole cooking, influenced by French, Spanish and African cuisines, is considered more sophisticated than home-style Cajun chow. Creole dishes are rich with butter and cream, whereas Cajun relies on animal fat combined with flour to make a long-simmering mahogany roux, a thickening base. Cajun is generally spicier, while classic Creole uses mellower filé powder, a seasoning derived from dried leaves of the sassafras tree.

Crawfish, fondly known as crawdads, look like itty bitty lobsters and range from 3 to 6 inches in length and 2 to 8 ounces in weight. They make their home in the warm, muddy basins of freshwater rivers, and appear in particular proliferation in the swamps of the mighty Mississippi from March through June.

How to eat a bright red crawdad?

Step One: Grab the head with one hand and the tail with the other.

Step Two: Twist and pull back the tail. The shell comes off, revealing tender meat. Pinch the end of the tail and pull it away from the head. The succulent morsel is ready to pop in your mouth.

Those seeking an authentic meal suck the spicy juices from the head. Either way, a swig of frosty soda or beer is mandatory before going on to the next twist, pinch and pull. A pile of napkins is helpful.

There is also Etouffée, a thick and spicy Cajun stew served over rice; crawfish pie; and crawfish French bread with cheese.

You can also dig into 45-gallon cast iron pots of Jambalaya. Arnone says his mixture of sausage, chicken and rice is Cajun-style because he prepares it in a brown sauce, unlike the “uptown New Orleans Creole Jambalaya” that is tomato-based.

Po’ Boy sandwiches are filled with oysters, shrimp or catfish, lightly fried in cornmeal batter. Then there is alligator sausage, made of 70 percent lean ground gator meat with 30 percent ground pork for tenderness.

“It don’t taste like chicken,” Arnone says.

New this year will be Boudin Balls, made of battered, fried sausage.

When your belly is full and your dancin’ feet are sore, sticky-sweet pecan pie or donut-like fried beignets, served piping hot, will perk you up for the ride home.

Info on tickets, food prices and camping at crawfishfest.com.

SUZANNE ZIMMER LOWERY is a food writer, pastry chef and culinary instructor at a number of New Jersey cooking schools. Find out more about her at suzannelowery.com.

 

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