The Rosewood Crawfish Festival

On the morning of May 19, I set out on a very special journey (this isn’t true, I’ve just always wanted to start some kind of official-sounding document with this sort of intro). What really happened that morning was the annual Rosewood Crawfish Festival. While a student at USC, I’ve lived in the Rosewood neighborhood for the last two years. Yet, for some reason, I never felt it necessary to show up at the Crawfish Festival. But a journalism assignment and the headlining musical act of Drivin’ n Cryin’ served as enough encouragement and motivation for me to go to the 2007 edition.

So it was all set. I was ready to go and soak up the “urban neighborhood” experience that I had heard about in a city planning class. After four years of school, I was looking forward to becoming “part of the community,” and not just a student that happened to live in Columbia. The only problem was this: I had no idea how to eat a blasted crawfish. Not a clue. I have a mother who despises cockroaches and hates fish, so needless to say, crustaceans were never on the dinner menu back at home. The closest I had ever been to eating a crawfish was when I dissected one in 10^th-grade biology. I got an A on that lab; I located the stomach.

Note how close the tail meat/muscle is to the anus. This will be important later.

So in the days leading up to the festival, I researched proper crawfish consumption techniques and etiquette so as to not embarrass myself.

It was a nice idea, anyway.

Walking up to the festival gate with my roommate, a man who claimed to understand more about Cajun cuisine than I, I paid my ten bucks and entered. The Rosewood Crawfish Festival’s Web site claims that the festival’s primary purpose is to raise money for green areas, bike trails, sidewalks and parks. Once I strolled on to the section of Rosewood Drive closed from car traffic between Harden Street and the Publix, I realized this official explanation for the festival’s existence was utter nonsense; these people were here to destroy some mudbugs.

My roommate Bob and I walked past the security entrance, where one of my friends was in charge of distributing ID wristbands (there’s some irony of wearing an O’Doul’s wristband to purchase beer). I pulled out my driver’s license and received my wristband so I could partake in some frosty adult beverages, when my Friend-The-Security-Guard called me some kind of anti-Semitic slur. This being about noon and fighting a hangover whose culprit was a particular blue-ribbon-winning beverage that may or may not have had a hand in making Milwaukee famous, I was curiously offended. I’m not Jewish.

Despite my Friend-The-Security-Guard’s problems with God’s chosen people, Bob and I meandered past street vendors, children, parents, clearly inebriated parents, teenagers (who may or may not have been inebriated themselves) to The Tent—the Canvas-Clad Chapel of Crawfish Consumption. I was ready. It was time. Bob and I pooled our money together and bought our $10 bowl-plate of crawfish, ready to give the little buggers’ lives purpose.

That's a lot of dead crawdads.

Coupling Bob’s advice with my Internet research, I picked a mini-lobster from the heaping, steaming pile of other mini-lobsters and grasped the torso in one hand and the tail in the other. I gently squeezed the base of the tail and the end of the torso, combining a twisting motion, and just as had been described to me, the surely succulent tail meat was just about to shed itself of its rigid, red mansion. Visions of a bayou taste explosion filled my head: I pictured the crawfish to taste something like if a shrimp were to mate with an LSU fan’s tailgate party in an orgy of flavor that would surely change my life.

This is the logo for the Bossier City-Shreveport Mudbugs of the United Hockey League. Look how delicious the little bastard looks! If only he knew that being salted and boiled alive was seriously detrimental to his hockey career.

Instead, my thumb applied too much pressure, delving into the suddenly exposed lungs and organs, while the whitish tail-meat emerged not from its mansion, but from its trailer park outhouse after a celebratory meal. The tail was covered in crawfish poop. The Ghost of Blue Ribbon was not pleased.

Still, I had signed on to try something new. I wiped the poop away, and I bit into the tailmeat. Ghost of Blue Ribbon frowned in anger. The craw fish wasn’t good. I figured I had just gotten a bad one. There were plenty of other little insect-cousins in the bowl-plate, and I was going to find the one that fulfilled my culinary fantasies. I grabbed another one, applied a little less pressure so as not to feel the crawdad from the inside this time, and removed the tail-meat from the tail. Poop. It’s not very easy to put your mouth where something has recently defecated, but dammit, other people eat these things. I can, too. I wiped it clean again, and again I ate it. My stomach turned.

In a fury of frustration, I forgot all about anything and everything else around me. I was going to enjoy my crawfish, and I was going to love every second of my exotic culinary experience, by God. No. 3 was going to be better. I knew it. He wasn’t. Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 8 (Senor Seven got crushed in Hulk-like anger) weren’t better, either. Ghost of Blue Ribbon made it clear to me that he wasn’t fond of this ride, and if it didn’t end soon, he was going to get off.

Contrary to popular belief, tasty, inexpensive beer celebrating mid-major midwestern cities does not go well with feces-covered water scorpions.

I emerged from my determined daze and looked at Bob. He had been lying. He knew no more about eating the water roaches than I did. His face looked as green as a particular Jolly Giant. Without saying a word, we tossed our bowl-plate of arthropod gore into an open trash can and made a bee-line for the street vendors. I soon learned that the greatest aspect of the Rosewood Crawfish Festival (aside from the angst-ridden teenagers) was there are plenty of food options not involving crawfish.

A few minutes after leaving the Tent of Broken Dreams, I saw what would be my most gratifyingly glorious sight of the day: Dano’s Pizza had set up a table and was selling by the slice. Through four years of college (and being flat-out broke) I had become something of a pizza pundit; I was quite the fan of Dano’s. Other local pizza joints had their plusses (Village Idiot has a bar experience, Pizza Man was made for eight pitchers of Yuengling, Mellow Mushroom has the jerk chicken-pineapple concoction and Pop’s NY Pizza is best with gelled hair, Yankees tattoos, and chants of “Rudy! Rudy!”) but Dano’s is the best pizza in Columbia. It was one Rosewood institution that I was very familiar with.

This woman's photo came up when I searched for Dano's Pizza. I'm putting her here because I'm strangely attracted to her.

A foldable, greasy, cheesy slice of pepperoni pizza later and the aftertaste of waterscorpion was gone from my mouth. Ghost of Blue Ribbon was pleased, as well. Now, I was truly able to enjoy the street fair.

The Rosewood Crawfish Festival isn’t just a celebration of Cajun food, it’s an interesting concoction of various events. Folks hocking unfinished furniture, homemade jewelry and Clemson throw pillows were camped next to Rosewood Market. The vacant lot by Rockaway’s was turned into a skate park for the handful of teenagers who weren’t angst-ridden. There was even a pole-vaulting competition that comprised about 20 or so high school athletes and average Joes. Even though Internet phenom and part-time pole vaulter Allison Stokke wasn’t there, it was still pretty interesting to watch such an unheralded and unconventional sport in the middle of a usually busy urban thoroughfare.

At the end of the line, right by Gamecock Country, was a stage with an old-timer playing the Delta Blues. The guy, who said he was about 75, was a one-man show. He didn’t need a band, as he slapped away at his steel guitar with a pace that defied his obviously arthritic hands. Bob and I watched this guy for about 20 minutes, listening to his stories sandwiched by his songs. He was definitely the highlight of the day.

After admission, mudbug bowl and pizza, Bob and I were completely out of money, and decided to go ahead and leave. While I wanted to see Drivin’ n Cryin,’ they weren’t going to be playing for another six hours, and I couldn’t keep my broke self entertained for that long. Being an involved member of the community certainly requires a certain level of expendable income that a college student simply can’t muster. It’s hard to budget street festivals when most of your money is spent on booze, girls, and various incarnations of sub sandwiches. But since I plan on living in Rosewood again for the next year, I’ll be sure to bring more cash to full enjoy next year’s festival. But I’ll just stick with the Dano’s, and leave the waterscorpions to the coonasses.

Y'all can have 'em.