Boiling crawfish are a common sight these days at Jane’s Seafood, which recently selling the boiled crawfish in mid-November. Others look ahead to the season.
Jane’s Seafood has started selling boiled crawfish early. One step in the business’ process is to put the mudbugs in ice after boiling, then back into boiling water.
At Jane’s Seafood, Brandon Tran, left, and John Pham wash and select crawfish by hand. The restaurant and others have started selling boiled crawfish.
Lee Ball / The Daily Iberian
Boiling crawfish are a common sight these days at Jane’s Seafood, which recently selling the boiled crawfish in mid-November. Others look ahead to the season.
Lee Ball / The Daily Iberian
Jane’s Seafood has started selling boiled crawfish early. One step in the business’ process is to put the mudbugs in ice after boiling, then back into boiling water.
The earliest harvest of crawfish is being served by a few Teche Area restaurants, but other vendors and farmers say they plan to delay a bit longer hopes for a more bountiful crop.
While some seasonal restaurants are just beginning to open up for business but Jane’s Seafood hasbeen selling boiled crawfish since the week before Thanksgiving, owner VuTran said. The restaurant is playing between $3.25 to $3.35 per pound of live crawfish, which aren’t exactly ideal prices, he said.
“The prices are a little high,” Tran said. “A better price is about $2.25 to $2.50 a pound.”
He said despite it being early in the season the mudbugs have been relatively sizable so far.
“It can vary each time we get them, but right now there’s been a good mix,” he said.
Medium- to large-sized crawfish probably won’t start hitting the market until at least mid-January and that still will depend on winter weather, said Stephen Minvielle, crawfish farmer and executive director of state Crawfish Promotion and Research Board.
Cold weather forces pond-raised crawfish to retreat into burrows and go dormant, he said, which is why much of the product being sold right now isstill relatively small.
“To put it simply, when you are in short-sleeves and shortpants weather,that’swhen the crawfish start rolling in,” Minvielle said.
There are a few farmers catching and selling right now, Minvielle said, but most will wait another few weeks before heading out to their ponds.
“Most farmers who have tried have quit because no matter what the price is, they’re not catching enough,” he said.” “There are some coming out, definitely. But in the large amount to meet the demand? No, not yet. But it will be coming soon for sure.”
Minvielle said he does expect a better farm-raised crop this season than the last due to steady rainfall this year.He said he lost $13,000 with his ponds between NewIberia and Loreauville due to last year’s drought.
“We’ve had a lot of moisture as far as the farm-raised product goes this year, so we should have a better season than we had at least in the Iberia and St. Martin parishes,” he said.
It’s still too early to predict what type of season it will be for wild crawfish caught the Atchafalaya Basin, he said.
“As far as the Spillway, I couldn’t promise anything, but that could change. It just depends,” Minvielle said. “Those trying to catch wild crawfish right now can’t hardly dock their boats in the water.”
Seasonal restaurant Big John’s Seafood Patio in Erath opened its doors to a big crowd for the first night of the season Thursday, Wendy Stoute who owns the business with her husband, Tommy, said.
“We had a really good first night — a lot of old customers and a few new faces. But the crawfish are still pretty small right now,” Stoute said. “We don’t expect nice-sized crawfish until mid-January. That’s when most of the farmers will start catching. They are letting them grow a little bit.”
Like crawfish farmers, the vendors also have their fingers crossed for a wild winter, Stoute said.
The restaurant is paying $2.75 per pound of live crawfish with the hopes of prices going down in the early part of spring.
“As soon as the prices go down we can lower our prices,” she said.
Though they may still be puny, Stoute said she expected the restaurant to run out of crawfish Saturday night due to high demand.
Landry’s Seafood off Jefferson Island is also holding out on serving crawfish until it gets a but further into the season, manager and co-owner Elaine Buteau said.
“We are trying to get some, but we want to have decent-sized crawfish,” she said. “We don’t want to sell the little ones.”
Boiled crawfish isn’t offered on the restaurant’s buffet until spring when there is a better supply, she said.
“We wait to put them out on the buffet when they are more plentiful, because sometimes it takes 25 sacks for the buffet a night,” Buteau said.
Spring is normally peak season for crawfish, Minvielle said, and this coming February is going bring a particularity high demand.
Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday fall on the same week as Valentines Day, which are all high volume days for crawfish sellers, Minvielle said.
“The phone is going to bringing off the hook with all the restaurants wanting them,” he said.
“Super Bowl Sunday is another really big day for us and, of course, the Friday after Ash Wednesday,” he said.
Valentine’s Day, Minvielle said, remains to be one of the season’s biggest “special” occasions for buyers. He said he’s already received 400 pounds worth of orders from the costumers for the Feb. 14 date.
“It is a fact that women love their crawfish,” he jokingly. “I just have to say, bless you ladies.”
