Photo by Cheryl Gerber

Once thought to be the greatest glory of any true Louisiana cook, crawfish bisque is now one of the most endangered of all Creole and Cajun dishes. This rare dish can be claimed by countless generations of both city dwellers and their country cousins.

The classical French culinary roots of bisque have been thoroughly masked by South Louisiana’s dark roux-based soup—rich with butter, but never cream as prepared on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The greatest prize of our local version is the spicy stuffing encased in each crawfish head, found bobbing in your bowl.

Bisque is strictly a seasonal affair as crawfish are only available in the springtime months. In our grandmothers’ time it was a two-day process that began with a sack of live, wriggling mudbugs whose transformation started with the purging ritual of a saltwater soak. Then, the live crawfish were boiled and peeled, but the hardest job was yet to come, as each head had to be washed thoroughly and set aside for stuffing.

Why is this incomparable Louisiana classic nearing extinction? The time and effort, of course, as an acceptable portion of bisque contains at least five stuffed heads. It’s a mathematical equation, actually. While making my annual bisque several years ago, I computed that each tiny, crawfish head requires handling a minimum of seven times.

Let’s count:

You put them into the boiling pot.

You pull the head from the tail.

The head is thoroughly washed and left to dry.

The head is stuffed.

Each stuffed head is rolled in flour and dotted with butter.

The stuffed heads are arranged on a baking sheet and browned in the oven.

After simmering in the bisque, you grab each head from your bowl, scooping out the stuffing. Voila, the great reward is finally yours.

If I’ve exhausted you just with the counting, let me offer this encouraging news.  Although my bisque still requires several hours to prepare, I use several shortcuts. First, I purchase only three or four pounds of already boiled crawfish.  That yields enough heads for stuffing and enough shells for making the crawfish stock. By purchasing one-pound bags of peeled crawfish tails for the rest of the recipe (a luxury unknown in our grandmothers’ bisque-making days), the workload is reduced immeasurably.

Take the pledge! Make 2012 the year you join the effort to “Eat It to Save It” with our historical, heritage food—crawfish bisque.

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