Crawfish
Informant Info: Libby Flint, age 59, New Orleans resident of 36 years, originally from Upstate New York and Vermont. Collected May 22, 2016 and recorded on iphone.
Verbal Lore: Folk Speech, Slang- associated folk lore: Material Food Lore
English
United States of America
Context: a Crawfish is a small marine crustacean that looks like a mini-lobster. It has many other names, like crayfish, crawdad, and mudbug.
“cray fish are called ‘Crawfish’ down here ”
Informant Info: Caitlin Flint, age 21, Metairie, LA, collected on May 22, 2016 and recorded on an iphone.
“ The next bit of slang is another culinary one, it is a little bit more well known, but still enough that I think it should be mentioned. The word ‘crawfish.’ Crawfish refers to a small marine animal that looms very similar to a lobster. It has a lot of different names, crawfish, crawdad, mudbug, crayfish. I have heard crayfish more often than I have heard anything else when I have been outside the city of New Orleans, or rather the state of Louisiana, but I have always known it as crawfish, because of the perennial crawfish boils that occur in New Orleans, but crawfish is a Louisianan slang word for that particular marine animal.”
Collector’s comments: Both informants agree that the term crawfish is used instead of the term crayfish. While they are related, mother and daughter, and thus share similar vocabulary, both remark that crawfish is used mainly in New Orleans and southern Louisiana. It is also popular in other Deep South states along the Gulf Coast, and can be considered slang that is unique to that large region as a whole instead of solely in New Orleans. However, crawfish boils are specifically associated with Louisiana and New Orleans which places the word squarely in the category of New Orleans Slang.
Tags/Keywords: New Orleans, crawfish, crayfish, crawdad, mudbug