.png)
I stared at the hallway floor in disbelief.
A pond full of vomit had just shot through me, and I could make out the crawfish tails, practically still wiggling, in the muck.
Without knowing it then, a new tradition had been born. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Let’s get one thing straight: Sometimes being left out isn’t too bad.
The hallway was my second post-crawfish puking episode. There had been the St Pius Fair incident, where Mr. McRae probably thought he’d poisoned me. But now we had a pattern. I was the problem.
Around the time my pediatrician suggested I was allergic to crawfish, I lay face down at Children’s Hospital with the tines of 100 allergy test needles sticking out of me. Each of these pricks left a welt that mapped an itchy topography of maladies across my back. The doc found the expected: pollen, ragweed, dust. And he uncovered some fun new ones: dogs, celery, carrots. (And though chocolate didn’t come up, I still sneeze whenever I eat a Hershey’s Kiss.)
They didn’t have a test for crawfish, he told me. But if I was lucky, it might wear off with age.
Springtime brings all my allergens to south Louisiana. The sidewalks are lime green with pollen as I write this. It also renews one of our great gathering traditions: the crawfish boil.
From that moment in the hallway on, I knew I’d have to pull up to these common tables expecting to eat nothing. So, I decided, I’d make it an occasion for a shrimp po boy, my favorite thing to eat since I could reach the counter and order for myself.
Over the years, that preference became tradition with its own sacred rituals.
Every Saturday before Mardi Gras, as the day parades wound down, I would walk over to Zara’s Lil’Giant Supermarket to get my sandwich. I held it in my arm like a warm football as I stepped through the alley to the back patio of my grandmother’s house, where boxes of crawfish were being spread across the week’s Times-Picayune.
Somewhere, in a corner so as not to take up space, I’d unroll the sandwich from its wrapping. The thin shreds of lettuce would emerge first, wrapped around the crusty loaf. Shrimp would jump from the buns onto the paper like they were eager to see me. I’d snatch one up and pop it in my mouth. Each bite was bliss. The spice of the shrimp fry, the tang of the mayonnaise, and crunch of the lettuce. And it was all over in a couple of minutes.
My parents, aunts, uncles, and their friends stood at that table peeling.
For a few more hours, I got to be an outsider. A crawfish boil is the one local tradition here that I’ve always felt excluded from. At the same time, it’s the only tradition I get to view with a clear head.
I watch men argue over what brand of ice chest to keep the crawfish in and when to salt them for the best flavor. I see them tussle over the spice ratio and the variations of citrus that are “allowed” in a boiling pot. I hear their indignation in their breath when the words “Viet Cajun” are uttered, as if tossing something in garlic butter is a violation of the Napoleonic Code.
Then they look at me for my takes. As a guy who cooks things, I must have opinions. It’s then that I drop the bomb.
“I’m sorry,” they’ll say, as if I’d just brought up an aunt who died four months ago.
Every spring, I get to witness a little of the insanity that tradition breeds. The beautiful, irrational lines we draw for who knows why. Maybe just to make conversation while we peel all those crustaceans.
There are, it turns out, many ways to boil a bug.
Truth be told, I’m not 100 percent sure that I’m allergic to crawfish. It was a quick diagnosis from a doctor after two prolonged vomiting incidents, and as he suggested, it could “wear off.”
And at this point, I’m fine not knowing. I’m fine standing on the edge and watching. I like to play tourist in my own culture and watch devotion, at a certain point, become insanity.
Sometimes you need to step out of the family chaos and go hang out with a friend to get a little perspective. A friend who you can find on any street corner.
And one who, in this case, doesn’t mind being devoured.