Crayfish parties are a Nordic tradition in August and who better to carry on that tradition here in the States than Ikea. In fact, Ikea had a Swedish Crayfish Party last Friday. Now, I have to admit I had never heard of a Swedish Crayfish Party. It’s difficult for me to even spell the word with a y and pronounce it with a long a! So I went to Wikipedia for assistance, “Dining is traditionally outdoors, but in practice the party is often driven indoors by bad weather or aggressive mosquitoes. Customary party accessories are comical paper hats, paper tablecloths, paper lanterns , and bibs. A rowdy atmosphere prevails amid noisy eating and traditional drinking songs . The alcohol consumption is often high, especially when compared to the amount of food actually eaten. It is considered acceptable to suck the juice out of the crayfish before shelling it. Akvavit and other kinds of snaps are served, as well as beer. The crayfish are boiled in salt water and seasoned with fresh dill. Served cold, it is considered acceptable to suck the juice out of the crayfish before shelling it.”
Well, there are some similarities to our crawfish boils here in Louisiana, but Ikea’s photo makes it appear that their party is a lot more refined than ours.
Ours are held outdoors, the atmosphere is rowdy as everyone likes to “pass a good time”, and we definitely have a mosquito presence! We don’t wear funny hats and we don’t drink snaps but we do consume both a lot of beer and a lot of food. We serve our crawfish boiled and highly seasoned with Creole seasoning. I’ve eaten crawfish in France and they were just plain bland. Something to “jazz it up” as we would say was needed. If plates are used, they are paper. Tablecovering is more than likely layers of newspaper with the crawfish, along with the corn and potatoes that are boiled with them, spread out on top of the newspaper. Yes, we also eat crawfish with our fingers, suck the heads and pinch the tails.
We honor the crawfish at Casart in the following way. These crawfish suffer no cruelty: they are neither boiled, poked, pinched or lathered with paste or glue. They are gently peeled from their backing (not shells), unrolled, and smoothed out on a wall, glass, wood or metal surface. The reverse procedure takes place to remove them, if you should so choose, and stow them away for use another time. Our crawfish are so happy, they even dance in the Crawfish Cotillion.
They dance on walls
They dance on carryalls.
And even share the dance floor with other critters like pelicans and shrimp.
And a whole bunch of others on the Gulf Coast Mural.
The people of the Gulf Coast are carefree, friendly and like to have a good time. We are also resilient and tenacious. We adapt and cope. We did it after Katrina and we are doing it again after the oil spill. But what about the sea life and the birds that make this beautiful region their home and the fishermen, who depend on this area for their livelihood? We created our Gulf Coast Mural to raise awareness of their plight and of the deteriorating marshland environment that may be lost to our way of life and culture. 10% of proceeds from all of our Gulf Coast designs and from these featured individual panels, which can create the Gulf Coast mural or be purchased separately, will be donated to the Greater New Orleans Foundation. This organizations has 20 plus years experience with ongoing restoration, rehabilitation, and endangered wildlife efforts for coastal Louisiana.
– Lorre Lei
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