How to Eat Boiled Crawfish

The most popular way to eat crawfish (sometimes spelled crayfish) is to first boil them in a large pot with potatoes, corn, garlic and lots of seasoning. Then, one by one, just peel, pull, eat and suck. It's that simple.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Paper towels
• A cold beverage
• Time to kill
• A table
• Newspaper

1. Once the crawfish are boiled, pour them on a table covered with newspaper or put them in a tray.
2. Grab a crawfish and twist the tail and pull it apart from the head. Put the head aside.
3. Gently separate the tail from the body by peeling off a few of the top shell segments (the one's farthest from the end of the tail).
4. Pinch the fan-like end of the tail with your fingers while carefully pulling the meat from the tail with your teeth and eat. Discard the shell. Wipe fingers and mouth with paper towels.
5. Grab the crawfish head and suck out the juices and the golden fat. The head has lots of flavoring so it might be spicy. Wash down with a cold beverage.

Tips & Warnings

• Crawfish are easier to peel when hot. If they sit for too long, it is harder to pull the meat out of the tail.
• If the crawfish is large, there will be claw meat. Remove the two claws from the crawfish's body. Crack a claw with teeth or pull one of the claw's fingers away from the claw. The meat usually comes out.
• Keep lots of paper towels on hand. A roll is better than one sheet.
• Crawfish can get messy and the juices tend to splatter, so try to avoid wearing extremely nice clothes.