Crawfish Tales
A spicy pilgrimage down the Bayou
It’s that time of year, again: when the smell of cayenne pepper and seafood wafts on the breeze throughout Louisiana; when boil pots are pulled from their storage sheds and given a baptismal rinse from the hose; when two, three, even half a dozen hand-washings can’t erase the spice from your fingers, the smelly beacon of pride letting everyone you encounter know that your last meal was superior. It’s crawfish season, folks.
Pushing against the assumption that authentic crawfish and Cajun cuisine requires a drive to Louisiana’s prairie parishes, Houma Travel welcomed this year’s crawfish season with its initiative, the Bayou Country Crawfish Trail, which highlights over thirty businesses serving Louisiana’s prized crop. After an afternoon spent roaming the Trail myself, I can confirm that the experience is sure to leave you and your vehicle coated in that coveted “new craw” scent.
While Terrebonne Parish has always been seafood-centric, Melissa Durocher, Head of Destination Development and Marketing for the Houma Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, noted that the statewide crawfish obsession is a somewhat more recent development. “If you look at when even I was growing up, you didn’t have crawfish everywhere, like you have it now,” she said. Her father, who she described as being “from a crawfish family,” was somewhat of an exception, simply because they lived on the bayou and it made practical sense.
“They actually caught crawfish and ate it as just a staple in their house because of where they lived. They lived near the swamp,” Durocher explained. “And he couldn’t believe when we were growing up how that changed. I mean, now everybody’s going crawfish crazy, everybody wants crawfish. Whereas before it was kind of like it’s a mudbug … now it’s almost like it’s famous.”
"...we ate what was fresh—so we would catch shrimp and boil shrimp, we’d catch crabs, boil crabs, we’d have crawfish day…it’s just what we had that was local. We all grew up like that.” —Melissa Durocher, Houma Travel
That Terrebonne translates to “good earth,” in French is somewhat ironic, considering that a huge percentage of the parish is comprised of water, meaning it is highly likely that there are actually more crawfish than people in Houma and its surrounding areas. While Breaux Bridge and the rice fields of the prairie Cajuns tend to get the glory this time of year, the good people of the parish named “good earth” want us to know that they have an impressive bounty and variety of the crawly, spicy critters, too.
[Read about another Louisiana culinary byway, the Andouille Trail, here.]
Before crawfish took off, Durocher told me, boiled shrimp or crabs were—and still are, in addition to crawfish—favorite staples in the Houma area, because they were available fresh locally. “My parents would have to take the crabs and put them in our platters because I would get so upset if my brother had a crab that was heavier than mine,” Durocher chuckled. “And so, we grew up with that kind of craziness. But we ate what was fresh—so we would catch shrimp and boil shrimp, we’d catch crabs, boil crabs, we’d have crawfish day…it’s just what we had that was local. We all grew up like that.”
Crawfishing in Terrebonne Parish is considerably different than the more controlled methods of crawfish farming in the central part of the state. Mitch Aucoin, co-owner of A&B Seafood and tugboat captain “by trade,” has been fishing, boiling, and selling seafood since he was in high school. He described the Lower Atchafalaya crawfishing as “wild caught fishing”. “We’re not like the farmers,” he said. “The farmers can control the water, they can pop ‘em out the ground by draining the water, they got ‘em at their fingertips. We’ve gotta kinda wait ’til it comes.”
Wild caught crawfishermen usually hold off on harvesting until late in the spring, when the snowfall up the Mississippi has melted, allowing enough water for their mud-motored boats to enter the necessary parts of the Basin. “Wild caught [crawfishing] is very fragile, you could say, with Mother Nature,” explained Aucoin. “If we don't get the water, we don't get the crawfish.” When the water levels in the Basin are too low, Aucoin sources crawfish from a farmer he knows personally in Welsh, Louisiana. By around mid-to-late-March, however, all of the crawfish Aucoin sells are caught right in Terrebonne.
[Read about the unique challenges crawfish farmers faced in 2020 here.]
One more thing to note before embarking on the Crawfish Trail: the folks around Houma are big proponents of sauce, so for an authentic experience, don’t skimp on it. Crawfish dipping sauce is usually a pink, mayonnaise-based sauce that’s varying degrees of sweet, spicy, and/or smoky depending on where you get it. It’s a reliable Southern edict that mayonnaise-based sauce improves most foods, and I must admit that in my opinion, crawfish is no exception.
A&B Seafood
Headed by childhood friends-turned-business-partners Mitch Aucoin and Marshall Brown, A&B Seafood is not just a boil house, but also a wholesale supplier of live seafood. “Everything that we have is hands-on touched,” Aucoin explained of their practice of either fishing the product themselves or working directly with those who do. “That's how we get the quality that we have.”
In addition to the quality of their seafood, A&B is lauded for their boil seasoning, and an unusual addition to the usual corn, sausage, and potatoes boiled sides: hot tamales. Mickey Brown’s Hot Tamales are a long-time local staple made at a nearby USDA facility by Marshall Brown’s parents—with some help these days from their son and Aucoin. The tamales are placed in mesh bags and dropped directly into the seasoned boil water with the crawfish. “We do a tamale Tuesday,” said Aucoin. “I had to do somethin' for taco Tuesday 'cause it was killin' us, but we got it.”
Belly full of crawfish and tamales, it was easy for me to see how of all of the destinations on the Trail, A&B is a favorite. The comforting heartiness of a corn masa-enrobed beef tamale soaked through with crawfish boil spice was good enough to make me wish I’d known about them sooner, inducing a sincere “Where have you been all my life?!” moment of reckoning in the parking lot.
The small, Mississippi-Delta-style tamales and the rest of the boil are soaked in A&B’s signature crawfish seasoning “bomb”—which is so particular, Aucoin said, that they were unsuccessful in outsourcing it and have to make it themselves, using a secret red pepper that is low on the Scoville scale but packed with flavor. They also make a product called “seafood cheese” that is similar to hogshead cheese but made with seafood. Despite such exciting and unusual products, boiled crawfish, shrimp, and crabs remain the favorites. On Fridays during Lent, Aucoin says they can sell anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 pounds of crawfish. Aucoin told me that stimulus checks dropping into locals’ bank accounts has, well, stimulated his business, as well—it’s a rare day that they don’t sell out, so try to get there sooner rather than later.
The comforting heartiness of a corn masa-enrobed beef tamale soaked through with crawfish boil spice was good enough to make me wish I’d known about them sooner, inducing a sincere “Where have you been all my life?!” moment of reckoning in the parking lot.
A&B Seafood
5990 West Main St.
Houma, Louisiana 70360
(985) 580-4311
Boudreau & Thibodeau’s Cajun Cookin’ Seafood Restaurant
We’ve all heard the Cajun jokes in varying degrees of inappropriateness, and here at Boudreau & Thibodeau’s Cajun Cookin’ Seafood Restaurant, they come to life printed out and framed on the walls. Opened twenty-three years ago by Mike and Debra Blanchard—who are from Houma and Thibodeaux, respectively—the seafood-loving couple of thirty-seven years “strives to create a light-hearted, comfortable feeling for all of our guests, beginning with the entry lined with jokes on the walls and tables, to the friendly wait staff, to the incredibly delicious, truly authentic Cajun food,” explained Debra.
The menu is massive—including items like alligator sauce piquante, étouffées, loads of fried and boiled seafood options, beignets, and much more, meaning that however you choose to approach the Trail, you can find something signature at B&T’s.
Sitting at a picnic table outside beneath a joke about Boudreau and Thibodeau’s ditsy female counterpart Clotilde, I indulged in the open-faced crawfish pie—which delectably wrapped a homemade étouffé in a subtly-sweet cornmeal crust. Beside it, the B&T Seafood Appetizer boasted crispy-fried boulettes of shrimp and crab topped with a richly-flavored and spicy crawfish cream sauce—good enough that even with the absurd volume of food I ate that day, I brought the last one home to enjoy later.
For another day, I noted the alligator sauce piquante and turtle on the half shell dessert, which have each been featured on the Travel Channel’s show Food Paradise, which brings in the out-of-towners. Still, Debra emphasized: “It is because of our regulars that we have become so successful.” But, if you’re really not from around here (we know this probably doesn’t apply to you, Country Roads reader, cher,) the friendly staff will even teach you how to peel crawfish.
Boudreau & Thibodeau’s Cajun Cookin’ Seafood Restaurant
5602 West Main Street
Houma, Louisiana 70360-1248
(985) 872-4711
Juicy Seafood
Of all of the many boil houses along the Crawfish Trail, the seasoning blend used by Juicy Seafood is perhaps the most unusual, and in my humble opinion, one of the tastiest. The tiny, takeout-only storefront has only been open for around two years, helmed by owner John Verret, who is joined by seasoning expert and boiler Chad Carrere. When questioned about the contents of his boil, Carrere mostly just smiled mysteriously and shook his head at me—an enigmatic secrecy I discovered was the standard from the masters of some of the best boils. I could glean from the flavor and pictures on Juicy Seafood’s Facebook page that a substantial amount of citrus and bay leaves are involved, but wasn’t able to place what kind of pepper was used—just that it was really, really spicy.
When questioned about the contents of his boil, Carrere mostly just smiled mysteriously and shook his head at me—an enigmatic secrecy I discovered was the standard from the masters of some of the best boils.
Another standout feature of Juicy Seafood is their special butter sauce—sweetened with honey, spiced with that evasive red pepper and plenty of herbs—some of which I’m relatively sure I’ve only encountered in Asian cuisines. I have a feeling I’ll be eating a completely unrelated dish, maybe years from now, perhaps in another country, when—like an epiphany—the herb blend will be revealed to me. For now, all I know is that it’s delicious.
Juicy Seafood
1217 Lafayette Street
Houma, Louisiana 70360
Find Juicy Seafood on Facebook.
Bourgeois Meat Market
You might be wondering why a meat market is included in a trail dedicated to seafood. In response, I’ve only got two words for you: crawfish boudin. "Crawfish boudin is a no brainer for anyone new to this area,” said Beau Bourgeois, fourth-generation owner of the 130-year old establishment. “Think, 'If South Louisiana was a food'.”
You’d also be right to balk at the more-than-century-long family history I just casually slipped into that quote attribution. Bourgeois was first opened in 1891 by Beau’s great grandfather Valerie Jean-Batiste Bourgeois, who founded the business by butchering a single pig or cow at a time and selling the cuts to locals via horse and carriage along Bayou Terrebonne. The advent of refrigeration allowed him to open a storefront on West Main Street of Schriever, Louisiana in the 1920s, where products like hogshead cheese and boudin helped curate a positive reputation and local following. After returning from World War II, Valerie’s son Lester decided to relocate the business onto Bayou Terrebonne, where it remains today. More than a century and a few generations later, that reputation is still strong in Shriever and Thibodaux and beyond.
Not only does Bourgeois’s reputation hold up, but the old-school atmosphere of the little bayou-side brick building does, too. It’s one of those spots where if it weren’t for the occasional customer brandishing a cell phone, it might be mistaken for a film set replicating the look of a 1950s butcher shop, or an even earlier one. “People come here to experience something,” the current Bourgeois, Beau, said of his family’s store. “I’ve tried to define what that something was my entire life, but I’ve concluded that the only way to explain it is to feel it for yourself.”
But that’s enough history—back to the boudin. “Our recipe stems from our grandmother’s crawfish bisque recipe, and it is unlike anything else I’ve tried,” said Bourgeois. Made with fresh local tails, the crawfish boudin is only available in the relatively narrow window of crawfish season. “Remember, the season comes and goes before you know it,” Bourgeois warned the market’s following in a mid-March Facebook post. “Once the trappers stop catching bugs, we stop making boudin. Don’t be the coo-yon that waits until it’s too late.”
“People come here to experience something,” the current Bourgeois, Beau, said of his family’s store. “I’ve tried to define what that something was my entire life, but I’ve concluded that the only way to explain it is to feel it for yourself.”
Of course, crawfish boudin is far from the only offering. Bourgeois also offers traditional pork boudin and shrimp boudin. While boudin burritos—simple and tasty, mild pork boudin in a flour tortilla crisped in a convection oven—have become a modern favorite, beef jerky has been the market’s pride and joy for quite some time. Plus, there’s still the hogshead cheese, and any cuts of pork or beef butchered on-site that you can imagine. “The beef jerky is what we are best known for, but what I think is more special here is the lost art of butchery,” Bourgeois said with evident pride. “We still butcher whole grass-fed calf quarters, and that fresh veal makes the best gravy you can imagine. We are proud of the recipes that we’ve maintained over the years, but more importantly, the skills and cooking methods that were passed down to us through our parents.”
Bourgeois Meat Market
543 W Main St.
Thibodaux, Louisiana
70301-5433
(985) 447-7128
The Shack of Houma
Owner of The Shack Douglas Davis grew up in Houma, crawfishing as a kid for the contents of family boils. As an adult he opened three other successful restaurants with partners, before opening The Shack. “It was time to be able to fully have creative freedom,” he told me. A relatively traditional, moderately spicy boil with nice, large bugs, The Shack is a local favorite of many; having been the recipient of The Courier Daily Comet’s Bayou’s Best of the Best awards countless times (really, the plaques are on the wall, and while we could have counted, there are enough stretching from the ceiling to the floor that we didn’t want to).
The Shack’s dipping sauce is subtly sweet, a tasty contrast against the classically spicy tails. In addition to boiled crawfish, shrimp, and the fixin’s, The Shack is known for its charbroiled oysters, fried alligator, and Bang Bang Shrimp. “Our team puts their heart and soul into our food and service,” Davis emphasized. “You won’t be disappointed.” I certainly wasn’t, and based on the steady stream of locals coming into the restaurant and through the drive-thru to get their fishy fix, I’d wager that’s consistent.
The Shack of Houma
1226 Grand Caillou Rd.
Houma, Louisiana 70363
(985) 868-9996
Quizine Quarters
One of the newest developments on the Crawfish Trail is Quizine Quarters, which in addition to a thoroughly-seasoned boil offers specialties like the Boo Special—a behemoth of a seafood stuffed potato doused in a cream sauce and served with fried catfish—crawfish bread, and much more. Owner KJ Townsend opened the restaurant on October 24 of last year, and the pandemic clearly has not hindered Quizine Quarters’ quick success. “It’s been a great experience, a lot of positive feedback,” Townsend said. “A lot of smiling faces, I’ve even got a few hugs from customers, so I think we’re doing the right thing.”
“It’s been a great experience, a lot of positive feedback,” Townsend said. “A lot of smiling faces, I’ve even got a few hugs from customers, so I think we’re doing the right thing.”
Quizine Quarters
6670 West Main St.
Houma, Louisiana 70360-1248
(985) 746-5242
Bayou Terrebonne Distillers
How does a whiskey distillery land on a list of crawfish joints? By creating the official Crawfish Trail cocktail, that’s how. “So you can go have some cool cocktails after you burn your face off eatin’,” Durocher explained. It helps that I’m a sucker for interesting family histories and craft whiskey, an affinity I’ve got a hunch some of our readers probably share.
Owner of Bayou Terrebonne Distillers Noah Lirette comes from a legacy of distillers—though historically, they aren’t so above-board. “My great grandmother was a moonshiner, that’s how this whole thing started,” he explained, pointing out Lily Lirette’s antique copper still, which sits in the distillery’s tasting room today. In addition to making liquor during the Prohibition years, Lily is remembered as Houma’s first Mardi Gras queen. “We say she’s a queen and an outlaw,” Lirette told me with a smile. Family stories about Lily abound, and she is often remembered peeling snap peas with a cigarette mostly burned to ashes dangling from her lips. “She would hide moonshine under the card table, because she and her sisters would play cards, and when the Sheriff would come lookin’ for the booze, he would look everywhere else but underneath the card table, because there’s a bunch of women sitting down,” Lirette told me.
In addition to making liquor during the Prohibition years, Lily is remembered as Houma’s first Mardi Gras queen. “We say she’s a queen and an outlaw,” Lirette told me with a smile.
The name Bayou Terrebonne Distillers comes not only from the current location in the 1921 cypress-framed Blum & Bergeron Dried Shrimp warehouse on the Bayou, but because Lily made her moonshine further up Bayou Terrebonne, as well. “We have an old-time story,” Lirette told me. “Our purpose is to preserve our family tradition along with the culture and beauty of the bayou region, and preserving this old building kind of fits squarely into that.”
Another homage to Lily’s original illegal enterprise is the name of the distillery’s current primary product: a clear whiskey made with corn grown in Alexandria called Contraband Whiskey, which is used in the Crawfish Trail’s signature cocktail. “Le Mon Temps,” or “me time” is served in a tall glass with lemonade, mint syrup, and cherry syrup; rounding out into a delightfully tart, sweet, and smooth refresher after a day of relishing in local spices.
Bayou Terrebonne Distillers
8043 Main Street
Houma, Louisiana 70360
(985) 790-7722
C’est Bon Café
When I visited C’est Bon Café fairly early on a Monday evening, I found the parking lot and nearly every table full, which probably tells you all you need to know about how the locals feel about this spot. The café serves solid, classic, not-too-spicy boiled crawfish with a zesty variety of pink dipping sauce and a massive menu of other offerings—including an invention I’ve never encountered outside of Houma called a shrimp patty. This is essentially chopped fresh shrimp re-formed into a hamburger patty shape, breaded, and fried, served on a bun and dressed like a burger—simultaneously indulgent and light (well, compared to an actual burger, anyway).
For me and my ravenous sweet tooth after a day spent eating spicy crawfish, the highlight at C’est Bon was the homemade tarte à la bouillie and red velvet whoopie pies. The tarte is infused with the homemade-with-love comfort that has me convinced the recipe comes directly from someone’s grand mére—a perfect, sugary-rich button to wrap up a crawfish feast.
C’est Bon Café
1400 Grand Caillou Road
Houma, Louisiana 70363
(985) 360-3928
For more information about the over thirty stops on the Bayou Country Crawfish Trail, and a link to an interactive Google map of all of the locations, visit crawfishtrail.com.