Eating Mudbugs Seems a Bit More Commonplace in Connecticut

Have you ever tried to eat a crawdad? Although we live in Connecticut, which is close to some of the finest seafood the Atlantic seaboard has to offer, I've only recently been able to find fresh or frozen crayfish at Big Y or Stop & Shop. You might think it's an imported Southern delicacy, but Connecticut has nine native species of crawdads.

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If you've been in one of the 20 or so Cajun boil restaurants that have popped up around Hartford, Torrington, New Haven, Waterbury, and Danbury over the past few years, you may have tried their boiled crayfish. Cray or Crawfish, or my favorite - Mudbugs. They're basically small freshwater cousins of the salt water lobsters and crabs we're all familiar with.

According to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection's Atlas of the Crayfish in Connecticut, although you may never see one, crayfish inhabit almost every freshwater habitat in Connecticut. In 2021 I wrote about the invasive Red Swamp crayfish that had appeared in numerous locations around the state. The CT DEEP's Atlas has an interactive map that shows where each of the nine species had been identified as of July of 2017. The most abundant appears to be the Spiny-Cheek Crayfish, which grow to 2-3 inches. The good eating ones that are in the grocery stores are Red Swamp crayfish from Louisiana.

If you were pondering if crawdads actually sing, they don't. I used to catch them in the creek when I was a kid. Never heard a sound, not a click either as some have reported. What do they taste like? Old Bay Seasoning. Try them, you'll like it.