The Case of the Copious Crawfish

Shrimp, crab, and oysters are all staples of Lowcountry cuisine, but crawfish are becoming increasingly available and even commercially raised in South Carolina.

Crawfish were on the menu once at a legislative party many years ago. Three fifty-pound croaker sacks of them arrived for the party, but only half of one bag ended up getting boiled and consumed. That left two and a half bags of claw-clicking, really mad, but still alive, crawfish. Several folks were tasked with disposing of the crawfish in a humane manner. Their first plan—dumping them in the fountain at the governor’s mansion—was quickly ruled out as unworkable, as they’d have to be spirited past security, and besides, it was possibly cruel to the crawfish to free them and then leave them in the vicinity of a governor known for being so cheap that he might have fished them out and eaten them!