They're all gone! Major crawfish bummer.

[FistFullaRoux]

My stepdad has been raising crawfish for a number of years now. He's very skilled at it, and he managed to get his pond to peak in production at the beginning of the season when prices are higher. Beautiful little mudbugs that he handles properly and has the perfect recipe for. The stuff dreams are made of.

A natural gas pipeline under the pond developed a leak. Ruined the whole thing. Killed every one of this beautiful strain he had, and poisoned the ground so the rice that the crawfish eat cannot grow. It'll be 5-6 years before he can even consider planting anything in that soil. Maybe another 10 before he can get it back into shape. It's (obviously) in litigation at the moment.

I am so bummed out about this. The wife and I had just made plans with a some other couples to go down at some point this year, and just stuff ourselves. I am absolutely heartbroken.

Edited March 29, 2004 by FistFullaRoux (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

My Condolences.

That's awful. Hopefully he will come out on top with the pipeline guys.

On the bright side, this is working out to be a good year for crawfish (although, once again, not really very good for the farmers and fishermen). I had them Friday and then again on Sunday. Size is mixed a little bit, but the quality is high.

[chezcherie]

oh. ouch. so sorry! i can only imagine how i'd feel if some unseen force got my chickens, and i don't even eat them!

[docsconz]

Major bummer! Good luck.

[KHT20]

That is heartbreaking! Do you have any idea of who owns the pipeline? I realize there is litigation over this matter already, but I can pull a few strings (mine) at the federal government level to make sure the bastards never do that to anyone else. Poor, poor crawfish... I was looking forward to my trip out to NOLA to eat them myself.

[FistFullaRoux]

That is heartbreaking!  Do you have any idea of who owns the pipeline?  I realize there is litigation over this matter already, but I can pull a few strings (mine) at the federal government level to make sure the bastards never do that to anyone else.  Poor, poor crawfish... I was looking forward to my trip out to NOLA to eat them myself.

Well, it's not like Louisiana is out of the things. It's just the one medium-sized but lucrative 7 acre pond. If you work with the Department Of Energy, and I told you the location of the facility the pipeline was connected to, you would know exactly who we are dealing with. But because of the litigation, I'd prefer not to say right now. There are still plenty to go around, though. Spend your tourism money in New Orleans and the surrounding area. Enjoy the crawfish.

It's just that these were so perfected... And I had the inside track to as many as I needed, pretty much whenever I wanted. Now I have to pay the same prices as everyone else when I go down there.

edited to add a few words, and this cute little

Edited March 29, 2004 by FistFullaRoux (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

That is heartbreaking! Do you have any idea of who owns the pipeline? I realize there is litigation over this matter already, but I can pull a few strings (mine) at the federal government level to make sure the bastards never do that to anyone else. Poor, poor crawfish... I was looking forward to my trip out to NOLA to eat them myself.

Actually, leaking gas pipelines are a HUGE problem in Louisiana. Many of the well to compressor lines are low pressure and a leak can go undetected for a very long time.

In Northern Ouachita Parish (look for a town called Sterlington on the map, just North of Monroe) there is an area where more gas pipelines cross/connect/get compressed than anywhere else in the world (some of these are to transport local gas and some are high pressure transmission lines moving gas from Texas and the Gulf Coast to the Northeaster part of the US). Maps of this are look like pick up stix. Transmission lines are high pressure and they pay very careful attention to those, but the low pressure lines fall into the problem of the production companies and many of these companies failed or were sold years ago and are now in the hands of third and fourth hand owners and are not well cared for at all. You can't imagine how many of these lines there are (this is the largest low pressure/shallow gas field in the world and has been in production since 1913). THere are literally over thousands and thousands of wells (many of them abandoned and long forgotten) in a very small area in the Northern part of the parish.

Much of South Louisiana has exactly the same problem, only it is exacerbated by the fact that many of these lines are under water (as is a hell of a lot of SOuth Louisiana).

[lala]

Oh my gosh! How awful! My condolences...

Litigation/ renumeration is all very well and good, but it can't replace the love and work that went into this. *sigh*

[Hest88]

Oh, how awful! I mourn for the crawfish, and I mourn for the crawfish eatin'.

[mudbug]

I'm in total empathy with you.... refer to my username and avatar....

:(

[Mabelline]

That is true farm tragedy. Spend years on something and see it go up to a force totally out of your control. I am sorry for youall, Roux.

[FistFullaRoux]

Well, the sense of humor has started to come back. I keep thinking of the line "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced"...

Yeah, I know. But you have to try to laugh about it.

[FistFullaRoux]

For those waiting for an update, it ain't neccesarily good news.

KLFY story

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says Erath (Louisiana) will be the site of a $175 million underground natural gas storage facility.

Sempra Energy's Pine Prairie Energy Center would consist of three salt caverns that together would hold 24 billion cubic feet of gas.

The HH is less than a mile from the step-dad's house. Not only are they going to take forever to fix the pipe, but another 28 miles of pipeline is going to be installed in the area.

I may as well resign myself to paying retail....

Edited November 23, 2004 by FistFullaRoux (log)

[sara]

Hi

Coming to NO next weekend. Are crawfish in season at this point?

[Mayhaw Man]

You are good to go. We had a bit of a cold snap over Christmas, but it's bacfk in the seventies and the prices are still good. Enjoy!

[bavila]

So when you say cheap, how cheap? 'Course, I'm in MD, so I'm sure I'll pay more, but it's nice to know what the price at home is. Looks like cajungrocer.com has tail meat for as low as $48.50 for 5lbs.

Merci

[FistFullaRoux]

$48.50 for 5 lbs??? Please tell me that includes shipping.

I'm in the wrong business....

[PopsicleToze]

$48.50 for 5 lbs??? Please tell me that includes shipping.

I'm in the wrong business....

←

I'm in New Orleans, and that sounds about right -- $10/lb for JUST THE PEELED TAIL MEAT. I've paid that many times at Langenstein's, etc.

Rhonda

[FistFullaRoux]

I'm from Vermilion Parish, so I'm used to paying quite a bit less, I guess. That I we hardly ever bought them peeled.

I'm getting upset again.

[PopsicleToze]

I'm from Vermilion Parish, so I'm used to paying quite a bit less, I guess. That I we hardly ever bought them peeled.

I'm getting upset again.

←

When I make etouffee, I have to buy 4# of the peeled tails -- $40 PLUS. One time I even got bad crawfish and the store was closed when I got them home. Since then, I make them open a pack for me to smell and taste. One buffoon wouldn't let me. I just said, "Look, I'm going to buy 4# of the things (and they may have even been $12; it's not unheard of), and I am NOT going to buy them unless I open a bag. So, if you open it and it's good, you have a sale. If you don't open it, then you are potentially selling seafood that shouldn't be sold. If it's fresh -- what's the problem?"

He opened them, and they were good.

And with the little cardboard-tasting Chinese crawfish on the market for much less money, I'm always advocating BUY LOUISIANA CRAWFISH. Really, if you just look at the plump, sweet La crawfish -- they can't be compaired to the counterfeit ones. And if you cook something with cardboard and don't like it, well then don't blame it on Louisiana food, because you didn't eat Louisiana food in the first place.

Sorry. It's a sore subject.

Rhonda

[FistFullaRoux]

I'm from Vermilion Parish, so I'm used to paying quite a bit less, I guess. That I we hardly ever bought them peeled.

I'm getting upset again.

←

When I make etouffee, I have to buy 4# of the peeled tails -- $40 PLUS. One time I even got bad crawfish and the store was closed when I got them home. Since then, I make them open a pack for me to smell and taste. One buffoon wouldn't let me. I just said, "Look, I'm going to buy 4# of the things (and they may have even been $12; it's not unheard of), and I am NOT going to buy them unless I open a bag. So, if you open it and it's good, you have a sale. If you don't open it, then you are potentially selling seafood that shouldn't be sold. If it's fresh -- what's the problem?"

He opened them, and they were good.

And with the little cardboard-tasting Chinese crawfish on the market for much less money, I'm always advocating BUY LOUISIANA CRAWFISH. Really, if you just look at the plump, sweet La crawfish -- they can't be compaired to the counterfeit ones. And if you cook something with cardboard and don't like it, well then don't blame it on Louisiana food, because you didn't eat Louisiana food in the first place.

Sorry. It's a sore subject.

Rhonda

←

Well, the fact is, I hadn't bought any in 10 years or so. I had a connection with a crawfish pond. No need to go to the store, just open the deep freeze at mom's house and take what I needed. He always had 30-40 lbs worth in the freezer. Because there's always leftovers from a boil, at least the way he does them. The leftovers get peeled and dropped into ziplock bags for future use. Maybe a couple of gallons of crawfish stock too.

When you get out of the habit of buying them, it's real hard to justify those kind of prices. I'd just as soon have shrimp.

And multiple dittos on the Louisiana crawfish. but you have to be careful. Some unscrupulous vendors are out there repackaging the Chinese ones. Always buy a brand you know. We won't go into the politics of the Chinese crawfish, but from a food safety standpoint, I'll take my chances with the Atchafalaya Basin...

[bavila]

I think I paid $13/pound last year at Whole Foods in Annapolis. And I don't always have a choice of Louisiana versus Chinese crawfish if I'm buying up here, but I always give a speech to grocers, restauraters, etc. that they should get the LA stuff. What's worse though, is when the Chinese crawfish still costs >$10 per pound.

I know the prices are insane (comparable to beef tenderloin, etc.), but believe me Fist, if the choice is to pay dearly and have it, or not pay and not have it, it's SOOOO worth the cost. And cheaper than a plane ride, to boot.

Here's another goodie -- I pay $35/head to go to the Tulane Alumni crawfish boil every year. Not a snooty private school thing either -- the other crawfish boils held in the area are comparable. Of course, that does include transporting cooks and equipment from LA plus a band (local to DC) for entertainment.

Last year the last batch of the boil didn't get finished by the crowd, so I loaded up a grocery bag to take home.

I'm actually thinking of hosting a boil at my house this year if my friends don't choke on the price to chip in.