After the Acadians (now called Cajuns) were exiled in the 1700s from Nova
Scotia, the lobsters yearned for the Cajuns so much that they set off cross the
country to find them.
This journey, over land and sea, was so long and treacherous that the lobsters
began to shrink in size. By the time they found the Cajuns in Louisiana, they
had shrunk so much that they hardly looked like lobsters anymore.
A great festival was held up their arrival, and this smaller lobster was
renamed crawfish.
Nothing else symbolizes the Cajun culture of Louisiana like
crawfish. Crawfish have become synonymous with the hardy French pioneers who
settled in the area after being forced by British troops to leave their homes
in Nova Scotia.
Crawfish (or crayfish) resemble tiny lobsters. They are also known in the south
as mudbugs because they live in the mud of freshwater bayous. they are more
tender than lobsters and have a unique flavor. Today crawfish are raised
commercially and are an important Louisiana industry.
The local Indians are credited with harvesting and consuming crawfish before
the Cajuns arrived. They would bait reeds with venison, stick them in the
water, then pick up the reeds with the crawfish attached to the bait. By using
this method, the Indians would catch bushels of crawfish for their consumption.
By the 1930s, nets were substituted, and by the 1950s, the crawfish trap was
used.
On July 14, 1983, Louisiana’s governor approved a law designating the crawfish
as the state crustacean. Louisiana thus became the first state to adopt an
official crustacean. That's how serious Louisiana is about their crawfish.