Crawfish boil a sellout

By Staff, 05/18/18 9:29 AM

PRESCOTT – It was a sellout.

The Prescott-Nevada County Chamber of Commerce’s annual Crawfish Boil was scheduled to go from 4-7 p.m. Thursday, but didn’t quite make it. This is because everything was sold out by 6:30 p.m.

Jamie Hillery, Chamber director, said 220.5 pounds of mudbugs had been presold. Overall, 420 pounds of crawfish was brought to be boiled. Before the feed was ready Hillery said her plan was to sell out. From the outset, there was little doubt this would happen as patrons started lining up shortly after 3:30 p.m., though Lagniappe’s was still cooking the potatoes and corn. The crawfish went in the boiling water shortly before 4 o’clock and the first batch was ready less than 15 minutes later.

Members of the Chamber’s Board of Directors were kept busy from the start, filling bags that had been pre-sold. The Nevada County Ambulance Service had ordered 10 bags of mudbugs and brought a large trash bag to carry the treats back to the station in. The bugs were bagged as quickly as they could be boiled and seasoned as the traffic flow was steady from the outset.

No one seemed to mind waiting as the weather was nearly perfect, and Zydeco music was blaring. Instead, patrons gathered at the tables set up for those planning to dine at the Farmer’s Market pavilion, and chatted with one another. The Chamber had crawfish boil t-shirt from previous years on sale for $3 each, and bibs were available to those who ate on-site, as were boxes for the bugs and their shells.

While the spuds and corn were cooking, volunteers had fun playing with live crawfish.