A Crustacean by Any Other Name

up front

food

A Crustacean

by Any Other Name Crawfish season hits home for Jimmy Pegram, owner of Cajun Crawdads, Inc. Story and photos by CASEY HILDER

T

he crawfish occupies a strange

year, I was lucky enough to get started

Clifford Tillman, a former winner of the

place in the culinary world.

on Superbowl Sunday,” Pegram says with

“Anything But” competition at the Mem-

Bigger and tougher than the

a half-serious grin. “We prepped a little

phis Barbecue Festival for his unique

lowly shrimp, yet bite-sized enough not

more than 200 pounds that day, so I’d

crawfish recipe, opened a small, but

to challenge the seafood supremacy of

say it was a relatively small cook.” The

busy, crawfish shack on Goodman Road.

main-course dishes like lobster.

small team Cajun Crawdads typically

But for seasoned seafood chefs like Jimmy Pegram, owner of Cajun Crawdads, Inc., the beady-eyed mudbug is a creature of tradition. Crawfish season heralds the coming of a Southern springtime like no other food, accompanied by dozens of crumpled newspapers soaked in zesty juices and hollowed shells that recall the tried-and-true MidSouth ritual of draining the nectar from native honeysuckle plants.

“Our season starts around March 1. This

16 APRIL 2014 | Click magazine

produces around ten times that much, an impressive feat given the of Pegram’s trailer just on the Tennessee-Mississippi border just off Cayce Road. With just four months of the year to turn a profit and sate the seafood appetite of multiple counties, moving a literal ton of crawfish in and out steaming boilers can take its toll. “We always get off to a strong start but come June 30, we’re ready to be done,” Pegram says.

“After Clifford ran off down to Natchez back in 2011, I ended up running the operations,” Pegram says. Tillman perfected his award-winning recipe and passed the details on to Pegram, who went on to spread crawfish consumption throughout the South including locales like The Local Gastropub, Newbys, Mr P’s, the Overton Square Crawfish Festival on April 12 and Harbor Town’s Crawfish Festival on April 19. In addition, he works alongside local charity organiza-

Pegram has had his hands in the craw-

tions like Ducks Unlimited and Toys for

fish hole since 2003 when his good friend

Tots, raising money through auctioning

off live crawfish.

One of Pegram’s more memorable cooks took place at this past year’s Ragin’ Cajun Crawfish Festival, where his small team cooked and served more than 2,000 pounds of crawfish in an hour and fifteen minutes. “We cook about 400-500 pounds at a time and if we give ‘em the full soak, it takes about 30 minutes to do it right,” he says. “But we can do push-cooks and soak for about 10 minutes but they aren’t as flavorful I don’t like to do that.”

And Pegram is exactly the type of man you’d want preparing your mudbug. He has no culinary school backing and cooking seafood is as just as much of a hobby for him as is catching it. In fact, a short stint as a manager at Burger King sums up the extent of his former experience in the field. However, an eye and nose for what works combined with a little business acumen from running a local carpet business in the off-season means that, like the crawfish themselves, Pegram is a natural fit for the region. And despite the bevy of pseudonyms that raise the question of what, exactly, he’s cooking (mudbugs, crawdads, mudpuppies, crayfish and yabbies are all popular terms), Pegrams likes to keep it simple. “It’s an interesting deal. I think I’ve heard most of those,” he says of the variety of nicknames for his main course. “I just call ‘em crawfish.”

But whatever their name, Pegram’s insists that all of his product should come from the mudbug motherland of Louisiana. Supplied by St. Landry Crawfish,

Click magazine | APRIL 2014 17

up front

"“We prepped a little more than 200 pounds that day, so I’d say it was a relatively small cook.” lively and farm-fresh are the strict cri-

these days are transplants from Louisi-

to flavor scores of shellfish. In addition,

teria Pegram judges on, with a keen eye

ana who moved up here when the big

Pegram and Tillman have concocted a

for “straight tails,” or crawfish that might

storm hit almost 10 years ago.”

signature seasoning to make for a truly

not have survived the 400-plus mile trip to the boiler. “We place orders every Wednesday, they’re harvested Thursday and in the boiler by Friday,” he says. “Everything comes live and the produce is fresh. These guys come straight from the farm, raised in 18 inches of water.”

The simple trailer-based setup at Cajun Crawdads, Inc. is focused entirely on its namesake, with racks upon racks devoted to soaking and drying crawfish as Pegram’s wife and grandson eagerly serve customers, uniforms pressed and putting on their best smiles to bear the heat.

Louisiana devotes more than 125,000

“We try to keep him as neat and present-

acres to crawfish farming. And while

able as we can down here,” Pegram says

farms have sprung up in other parts

of his self-contained shellfish shack.

of the country, those who know Cajun food know exactly where to go. “We find Louisiana crawfish are hardier. Better,“ Pegram says. “A lot of our customers

18 APRIL 2014 | Click magazine

The trailer provides more than enough for Pegram to combine the simple ingredients of garlic, onion, lemon, butter and a little bit of smoked sausage

one-of-a-kind taste. “We make our own.

It’s definitely not Zatarain’s or anything like that,” he says. “But it does have a nice kick.” But for those that enjoy his seasoning, Pegram warns that the true taste has to be cooked in, not dusted across the top technique. Proper cooking seals all the juices within the chitinous crawfish cavity, making the much sought-after “juices” all the more potent and accessible. “Some of our customers come down and want theirs sprinkled,” he says shaking his head. “I can’t stop them from doing it but you won’t see me doing it.”