re: Move to Lafayette?

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There was a crawfish boom in New Orleans, but it was a few years prior to the World's Fair- more like 1978 or so.

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Actually the crawfish boom occurred with the large scale commercial harvest of the Atchafalaya, later rice fields, refrigerator trucks, and the I-10. Before that, crawfish were caught and eaten locally. Most were amateur catch and cook with few professional commercial fisherman. My earliest memory of a crawfish boil in the New Orleans area dates to 1968 in Chalmette when my cousins caught about the equivalent of 3 sacks.
Now Cajun country experienced the boom first because the Atchafalaya consistently produced large amounts and the local market didn’t demand fast transport and refrigeration.

The boom hit New Orleans when the cheaper commercial harvest was shipped in and it started in the middle 70’s and were a Good Friday staple by the late 70s.

But trust me. Crawfish were known and eaten in the New Orleans area almost from the cities founding because the natives ate them for centuries.