Hi, I'm Josh.
I'm Ollie.
And we're about to try an enormous amount of Cajun crawfish boil.
I feel very far from home right now.
There's more pickup trucks in this parking lot than there are in all of the United Kingdom.
I've seen some plates and we walk past. The plates are like this big.
Wow.
A lot of food.
Look, look at the plates he's carrying. Look at the size of those. Hello.
That's a tray.
Oh my gosh.
So these are your char oysters. They are very hot. Soft shell crab.
So this you can just chew straight through the whole thing?
Yes, what happens is they grow their shell,
And in between that growing out of that shell and that shell getting hard,
They're called the soft shell.
So you can fry them and eat them whole like that.
We've got crawfish and then these are the blue crabs.
So this is our short-legged lady.
The legs aren't that short.
They're short but look at our snow crab.
Oh wow.
Holy moly.
I feel like there's nothing left in the sea.
We have the entire cast of the Little Mermaid sat in front of us.
Don't say that!
With the exception of Ariel, obviously.
Oh my gosh!
Bit of soft shell crab.
Oh my gosh.
That's not just like soft shell, that's like soft shell.
I must say, given how she described what a soft shell crab is,
I didn't know what it was before.
Okay.
I do feel a little bad.
It's like catching someone with their clothes off.
I was trying not to linger.
You know? The crab is fresh out of the shower, it thinks no one's watching,
And then it gets plucked out naked and then deep fried!
In its most vulnerable state because...
Can you imagine getting deep fried right after a bath?
You just had a spa day and before you know you're in a vat of boiling oil!
It's so worth it! It's so worth it!
It tastes like a crab that has had a lovely day of wellness, shedding its hard exterior.
The crabfish when they talk about sucking the head, I'll show you that.
Sucking the head
Sounds weird. All that comes out is you get a little more of the seasoning.
It'll be a little spicier. I guess you don't know how to open them. So I grab my gloves.
I don't know how you guessed.
You hold the crawfish like this and twist.
You may not look very easy.
Well, this is years of practice.
But you're gonna have to try to suck the head if you're gonna be in New Orleans, so just squeeze it and then suck on it.
It would be my pleasure to suck this.
Oh you got one too, you don't get out of it.
Oh absolutely, I'm down.
And like I said, you squeeze it and then suck on it and you're going to get all the juices and the seasoning.
Wow.
It's really delicious but it's got that peppery kick.
Wow.
Okay this is not like an everyday occurrence when you're having food in the UK.
No.
Surgical gloves.
Normally when you see one of these something unpleasant is going to happen.
But it's medically necessary.
The first thing she said to do was give it a wiggle,
Look at this. pull it out.
Oh wow, you did that quite well.
And then we gotta get rid of all this little stuff, right?
How the heck did she do this?
She made it look so easy.
Nicely done.
Cheers.
Yeah.
Are we okay?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's so good.
You got it figured out?
Yeah, I think so.
Well, I wouldn't say that.
We're getting there, we're getting there.
We're getting there.
You really do get a shot of the seasoning.
Literally, it's like smoking a cigar for the first time or something.
It's like a seafood cajun vape.
Oh, there's so much flavour.
So different.
Yeah, I can get used to this.
Yeah, I get it.
Mate, squeeze it and then suck it up.
I'm telling you, he thought I was joking.
No.
Good, right?
You feel it.
Yeah, he's been vaping seafood since he was a child.
You know what, because it's got a little bit of spice.
I'm eating them faster and faster.
Well, the closest comparison I can think of
is Flaming Hot Cheetos, you know?
Oh sorry Debbie.
Oh, you're fine.
Do you know what I mean?
It's so moreish.
It's very addictive.
People wait all year for that.
And we just started our season.
We came at the right time.
If me and Josh open a crawfish from the beginning.
I'm just not good at it.
You rate our technique and tell us who is the best.
I can tell you right now, you're better.
I can tell you which ones learned faster.
Oh.
Ready?
Yeah, sure.
Wow.
Oh you've gone straight for that, yeah.
Okay.
Come on.
I think I'm making them nervous.
Yes, got it.
You both did very well but you did suck the heads.
I think one criticism you could level at shellfish you get in the UK.
Is that it doesnt have a strong flavour when it's just cooked in butter.
Whereas the seasoning for this.
There's so much flavour.
It's amazing.
I can get used to this.
Yeah, and our blue crabs here, if you hold this little flipper right here and you lift the shell.
Oh!
Now if there's juice in here, that juice tastes amazing.
Okay, good.
Alright, try drinking the juice.
Give me the crab juice.
Well, when I came, I started asking all the people that had grew up eating this, "How do you do that?"
And they showed me and they were very kind.
Alright?
The juice packs a punch.
Oh, it's so amazing.
Packs a punch.
Isn't it good?
It's really good.
It's strong.
It's really good.
So this is sausage meat and rice.
That's squidgy.
I mean, you've got a dog.
I owned a dog.
That honestly, it feels like the bag when you pick it up.
It's exactly the same texture.
Feel it.
No, I don't want to feel it.
No, why are you?
You don't have to eat this one with your hands.
You can use a fork.
No need to put gloves on.
Save them washing up.
To me, I'm trying...
I feel like this is like a southern haggis.
You know, we put like meat and oats together.
Yeah.
Whereas this is sausage meat and rice instead.
Alright, let's do it.
Oh, oh yeah.
Oh, heavily spiced.
It is not dissimilar from haggis.
The flavours in everything you try here is just so much more complex.
Even if you have like good haggis.
Oh, good haggis is great, don't get me wrong, but that's like spicy.
Spicy haggis.
It's spicy haggis.
Fair enough.
I really want to try this grilled oyster. Look at that.
I'm excited about this.
Wow.
Why, just because it's bread?
I am.
Yeah, you're an idiot.
All right.
Look at that.
So it's grilled with like melted butter and cheese.
Oh my gosh, that is so good.
It tastes like oyster pizza, you know?
Really good.
Yeah, I know. I actually see what you mean.
Is that the best oyster you've ever had?
Definitely.
Would eat again.
Okay.
Unlike most other oysters, fair enough.
There's so much flavour.
I can't stop, I honestly can't stop.
It's like properly addicting.
This is amazing.
Do people typically eat this amount?
Well that's five pounds so the average person eats between three and five pounds.
The average single person?
For one person?
One person, three to five pounds.
Wow.
What's the most anyone's ever eaten?
Well we had a gentleman whose record was forty-two pounds, which is an entire sack of crawfish.
Forty-two pounds.
That's eight of these!
Yeah, over eight of those.
I must say when it came out, it looked a little bit like a salad from an alien planet.
It does, it's quite intimidating.
We don't have anything like this that's served like this.
But I get it, I understand why this is such a big thing.
I'm assuming you know how to do the lobster.
Yeah.
Yeah, I assumed wrong.
Okay.
It's okay.
It's all right.
So we click here.
Oh, that's the lobster claw.
Yeah, that's the claw.
Fantastic.
And then the lobster,
I just treat it like a giant crawfish.
Do we suck the head?
Oh, wow.
I don't know.
I mean.
Do not suck the head.
I don't know, I've never done it.
Oh my gosh.
What does that taste like?
I think I just taste all of the sea.
I tasted all of the sea.
If anyone ever asks you again whether they should suck the head.
The answer is no.
Look at the side of this lobster tail as well, that shes just cooked.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, the claw.
Hell yeah, hell yeah.
This has been amazing, Debbie.
Well, when they talk about Louisiana food,
Now you understand,
'Cause the flavouring is completely different.
When the French Cajuns got down here,
They had to figure out a way to make everything good and they did they figured out how to season everything up.
And it is wonderful.
Thank you so much, we really appreciate it.
Your welcome
I don't really entirely understand why we don't eat seafood like this in the UK. We're an island.
Well we have crawfish in our fresh water rivers.
There's so much seafood around the UK. But yeah, I mean we deep fry everything.
Yeah, but salt and vinegar on it. That's kind of our thing.
I think I'm gonna try this.
I'm gonna try and do it.
I would love to.
With the exception of sucking on that lobster head.
This has been a wonderful experience I was in heaven and then momentarily transported straight down to hell.
Look you want to suck on the wrong head Ollie.
If you've learnt anything today.
I think it's probably gonna take us another about hour or two to finish all this crawfish because we don't quite have the skills yet.
And the crew needs to try some more of this because it's absolutely unreal.
In the meantime.
See you jolly soon. What the heck's next?