Asking
Only logged in members can reply and interact with the post.
Join SimilarWorlds for FREE »

Whip Inflation Now!© Government says we need to start eating “invasive species”.




Photo above - this is NOT an exhortation to commit domestic abuse. It's an award winning seasoning to make consumption of mudbugs (crawfish) palatable.

If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em? The link below says we should be hunting and eating “invasive crawfish”. If you don’t know what these are, you’re flatlanders who live in the city. Here in the swamps (Florida) we call them “mudbugs”. They look like miniature lobsters, and live at the bottom of every highway runoff pond. Good eating, for sure – if you can get them out of the shell. A legitimate 3 inch salt water lobster would present the same challenge. Several crawfish processing companies have offered cash prizes if anyone can invent a device which (humanely) kills a mudbug, separates the ¼ ounce of meat in the tail for human consumption, and grinds up the rest for cat or pig food. This is a challenge too good to pass up, no?

I was expecting the government to order us to eat Burmese pythons. A dozen apparently escaped some crate at the Miami Dade airport in 1978, while enroute to pet stores. There are now either 10,000 or 100,000 or 1 million pythons loose in the everglades (and in suburban Florida back yards) depending on which online resource you use. The government is paying professional “snake wranglers” cash prizes to (humanely) kill them. Don’t know if the meat is being used for cat food, dog food, pig food, or humans yet.

Venomous lionfish, plaguing Florida’s coral reefs, are already on the menu is some Miami restaurants. Watch out for the spines! If you get pricked by one, a trip to the emergency room might be in your future. Florida is having trouble persuading professional lionfish wranglers to rise to the challenge and harvest them en masse.

Okay, there are a LOT of invasive species in America. Silver (flying) carp. Wild boar. Nutria – Russian river rats – which are almost indistinguishable from American muskrats. Zebra mussels, which pose an existential threat to nuclear power plant water intake pipes. Birds of many kinds.

I have done my part in the past to rein in dangerous wildlife. At various times I’ve been persuaded to dine on rattlesnake, boar, venison (roadkill deer), muskrat, squirrel, snapper soup (alligator snapping turtles), pigeon meat (they invaded from Europe), Muscovy ducks, and gator meat (tastes like chicken – because that’s what they feed the gators at Gatorland park.)

I don’t believe that eating 1 ounce crawfish, or even 200 pound Burmese pythons, is going to bring my grocery bills down. But I keep reading about the poor soybean farmers who now want billions in bailouts because China is buying all its soybeans from Argentina. My advice to the government: help those soybean farmers convert to beef or pork or corn, and forget mudbugs. They only tasted good if you drown them in hot sauce.

I'm just sayin' . . .



MSN
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
Crawfish may be invasive in Florida, but here in Louisiana we farm them and eat as much as we can harvest.

If you don't like the taste, try Zatarain's instead of Slap yo Mama. I've never had it on crawfish, but I tend to think it's got too much pepper, and not enough onion and garlic for my taste.
I had no idea you were in a state saddled with the Napoleonic Code, @MistyCee...
@SomeMichGuy I feel more supported than saddled by it honestly. It's got its flaws, but was the product of deliberate effort rather than centuries of floundering.
This comment is hidden. Show Comment
SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F
@MistyCee i have been to combo catfish/crawfish farm in Monroe Lousiana. they were pivoting from chicken to aquaculture because of the expense of air conditioning the coops.

there native crawfish and invasive crawfish. same with salt water crabs. good luck trying to convince people sort through them and focus on the non-native ones.
@SusanInFlorida I wouldn't trust crawfish from Monroe. Down South you can get them from farms or from the Spillway, which I guess is like free range crawfish.
@SomeMichGuy Yup, I was talking about the British common law. US law seems to me to be becoming more civilian over time, tbh.

Unlike the UK, we have a written Constitution, and I like that. Plus, for all that Louisiana is a backwater without so many top 10 law school graduates, we've statutes governing statutory interpretation that SCOTUS Justices really ought to learn from.

Civilian analysis is cleaner, imo more honest and worth emulating, even if it's got its own flaws.

Of course, the reality is, in practice, it doesn't make that much difference.