re: David Chang prefers seasoning on the outside of crawfish

Visits Galatoires (French-creole) looking for viet-cajun crawfish and is shocked when a Houston native, working in the quarter, describes the food scene to the best of his knowledge.

Chang gets it. The way I always learned to prepare crayfish was to keep it simple. You boil them in water seasoned only with salt and lemon. Then when they are tender, you drain the water, place them in a container and coat the exterior liberally with a cajun spice of your choice, such as Tony's. That way you get the nice bit of spice on your lip with the juicy meat right after.

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That way you get the nice bit of spice on your lip with the juicy meat right after.

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If you're peeling the crawfish, how do you get any of the seasoning?

For peeling vets, all we do is pinch the tail and get the meat out so that's even less than someone getting it all over their hands and then on the food.

I just think it's silly that you'd season something, not directly, but in a way that you're only going to taste it because it gets on your hands. That'd be like eating a hot dog, and instead of putting any of the condiments directly on it, you just squirt them on your hands

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I just think it's silly that you'd season something, not directly, but in a way that you're only going to taste it because it gets on your hands. That'd be like eating a hot dog, and instead of putting any of the condiments directly on it, you just squirt them on your hand

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This is exactly correct.

The whole "sprinkle/dusting" thing works like this, when you think about it:

1) Because dry seasoning can't through to the tail meat, much less the head fat, it simply rubs off on your hands when you pick up the crawfish.

2) Then, in your process of peeling the crawfish tail, you have to hope some of the dust rubs off from your fingers onto the tail, or, you basically have to put the tail in your mouth and suck your fingers to get any seasoning.

3) The head is even worse. Your lips touch the outside of the head (where the seasoning is on dry) but the fat goes inside your mouth when you suck it out. So the only way to get any seasoning there is to suck the head, don't swallow, then basically lick your lips and mash it all together in your mouth.

It's absolutely insane and stupid. I mean, I guess I could also squirt ketchup and mustard directly into my mouth, and then take a bite of a hot dog, but that's stupid as well.

My cousin's father in law is a Lafayette idiot who boils them in seasoning, and then pulls them out, drops them immediately into an ice chest (i.e never letting them soak), and then dumps cayenne pepper all of them and shakes the ice chest, and then lets them sit for 30 minutes. I tried them once... there was absolutely no taste whatsoever of crawfish... all you could taste was cayenne. Why spend money on crawfish... just open up a container of cayenne and dump straight into your mouth.

Pretty sure I’m engaging in food conversation about how ridiculous people are when it comes to crawfish

Its difficult for me to take what he says serious, when he looks like he has Down Syndrome.

Just watched that episode. I'm curious to try Viet Cajun crawfish with the garlic butter now

I’ve only had seasoning on the outside once. They were done by a bunch of guys from Crowley that had their process well honed. Excellent crawfish.

I’ve also had my fair share of shitty, seasoned-in-water crawfish.

Point being, people can frick up some crawfish in many different ways.

I enjoyed when he was talking to the Vietnamese shrimper and family about immigration...

I laughed at that.

And you can almost feel like Chang wanted to tell the taco guy who's wife was here illegally to go frick themselves. Seems like Changs parents came here the right way and this dude is preaching to him about immigration