That’s what I said when Mark asked me if I wanted to go to a crawfish boil. Thanks, but no thanks, since, well, “spicy” is not a word that New Englanders really understand, not to mention the fact that it’s hard to even find a box of Zataran’s rice mix up here, much less crab boil.

It turns out that Mark had met an LSU alum at work, and he’s part of a group of alums that get together for all the Saturday LSU games, and once a year host a huge crawfish boil at a bar right across from Fenway Park. We ended up going and it was great! Who knew. They ordered 650 lbs. of crawfish, and lemme tell ya, this was the real thing. I talked to the “chef” a bit (although he was visibly stressed because the crawfish was on a bumped flight and some guys had to drive down to Providence to get it). Turns out he’s from Lake Charles and lived in New Orleans a while. He had quite a setup, with a custom-built vat set on cinder blocks. He had whole heads of garlic in there, bags (including the bags) of onions, in addition to some cut up onions and said Zataran’s crab boil seasoning. He also squeezed a bottle of mustard into the water; when I asked him about it he pointed out that the first ingredient in the Zataran’s seasoning is mustard seed…go figure.

I didn’t get a picture of him, but LSU’s own Eric Alexander was there, wearing a big ole Super Bowl ring. I didn’t see him eat crawfish; if he did, I wonder if he took the ring off…This was such a blast for a couple of Southerners lonely for some Louisiana culture. Thanks, Mark for taking me.

Here are a few pics; Mark got some better ones, I think…maybe he’ll send them to me so I can post them.

Boston skyline and crawfish boil

bags of live crawfish just arrived from Providence

boilin'