Sucking Heads, Those Things Raw, and Eating Cute Turtles

As our relationship grew stronger, Nancy and I were making more and more trips to New Orleans. It was nice to be able to go visit her family, friends, and just see all those New Orleans things. There is always something new to do, see, or eat in New Orleans. This is about the latter.

To this day, I am a pretty picky eater except when I go to New Orleans. For some reason, the atmosphere there encourages me to break out of my shell, and wow, there are all kinds of things there with shells.

My first visit to New Orleans was when I was introduced to the crawfish. It was such a wild concept to see this crawfish that had been crawling around not to much earlier now looking at me ready to tear into him so I could get the meat. What a savage concept. So I slowly learned the art of getting the meat out of the crawfish. I am still far from being a master, though. Eating crawfish is something where my meticulous way of doing things does not work. As my girlfriend and her aunt tore through 5 crawfish to my 1, I noticed something peculiar. Her aunt was taking the crawfish heads and sucking them. I looked puzzled I am sure-so I had to ask. “It’s the best part” was her aunt’s reply. I looked at both of them and took a shot (of crawfish head fluid) and it was not too bad. I did another, and another, and it got easier and easier. How cool was this?

On that same trip I was introduced to the raw oyster. This was a little less exciting. We had ventured to the Riverwalk and went atop of Jax Brewery. There was a raw oyster bar there. I enjoyed the beer more than the raw oysters. I just had this innate fear of eating something raw. Of course I did it wrong with the first one. I just bit into it-no cracker, no red sauce or lemon. Texture wise this was a real nightmare. The taste was, interesting. Then I was taught how to do it. You adorn them with sauce and lemon (cracker optional) and swallow. I tried a few but never got into them until recently.

As Nancy and I have made our trips there, I have tried to explore food further. She showed me the greatness of the Acme Oyster Bar. The raw oysters are great, but even better-oyster soup. I have enjoyed several crawfish boils. The neat thing about them is the people there with you-be it family or friends, who make that kind of eating more special. I can even look past my OC issues of being messy and just enjoy the crawfish boil for all it is-an event and a gathering and not just a meal.

Then there are the turtles. I remember our first trip to Mandena’s. We were going to enjoy some po’ boys at a place I had never tried. They also had something called turtle soup. When I first heard that, I thought “yeah right” with visions of a little turtle floating in some kind of “gumboesque” substance. Sure enough it was on the menu and I was going to have no part of it. Nancy ordered it, as did her dad and step-mom. Hmm, it had no floating turtle when it arrived. It was just bowl of copper-brownish soup. It came with buttered French bread and then the waiter poured sherry into the soup. How interesting. Nancy asked me to take the first taste. I was nervous and then I tried it and it was an instant love. Next, I dipped the bread into it-even better! Since then, Mandina’s and the turtle soup has been a regular part of our New Orleans jaunts.

So from crawfish, to oysters, to turtles, along with shrimp (I have even tried rabbit), New Orleans offers the taste buds all kinds of new sensations. I know there is so much more food to discover and that will be a really nice perk of moving to New Orleans. Now where did we put that frozen gator meat?