Viet-Cajun Crawfish
Viet-Cajun crawfish is an increasingly popular dish in Houston. Crawfish is a staple food of Louisiana as Louisiana supplies 95% of Crawfish harvested in the US (Crawfish Aquaculture). It is also eaten frequently in other areas of the southern United States as large crawfish boils. Traditionally, crawfish are boiled in water seasoned with spices, and other sides are added to the water such as potatoes and corn. Viet-Cajun crawfish are boiled in water without spices, then a combination of Vietnamese and Cajun spices are added after the crawfish is cooked. This creates a cleaner crawfish taste.
The most obvious reason that Viet-Cajun crawfish works well in Houston is that it is a delicious and interesting take on a common food found throughout the south. Houston is culturally diverse and the people are generally open to trying new foods, so it makes perfect sense that an interesting alteration of a staple food would become so popular. Vietnamese immigrants came to Houston in 1975 after the Vietnam War and opened up restaurants in the following years, so the flavors of Vietnamese food had already been well integrated into the pallets of Houstonians before Viet-Cajun crawfish became popular in the 2010s.
There are a plethora of not-so-obvious reasons that Viet-Cajun crawfish came about and became popular. When most of the Vietnamese immigrants came to Houston, crawfish wasn’t widely available in Vietnam. But Vietnamese immigrants were attracted to crawfish at markets because it is one of the few things in grocery stores and markets kept alive until cooked (Ugly Delicious). In Vietnam, it is very common to buy seafood live. In grocery stores throughout the US, seafood is kept frozen or refrigerated. Live Crawfish would have resembled the river prawns found in outdoor markets in Vietnam (Ugly Delicious).
Viet-Cajun crawfish is spiced with a combination of Cajun and Vietnamese spices. These flavors both stem from French cuisines, as France colonized both Vietnam and Louisiana. There are so many ingredients that overlap in Vietnamese and Cajun food, that it is only natural that they would combine when they met in the southern United States. By combining with a flavor profile that was already widely available in Houston, Vietnamese food became even more accessible to Houstonians.
However, Viet-Cajun crawfish has not thrived in New Orleans, another port city with a lot of Vietnamese immigrants, like it has in Houston. New Orleans has a long history and has for hundreds of years been an economic center, allowing for its food and art cultures to thrive and for traditions to form. One of those traditions is boiling crawfish. Usually eaten communally, crawfish is boiled in spices and spread out on a large table, most often in celebration or for a family gathering. Cooking crawfish like this has been a tradition since the 19th century (Jefferson Chamber). Because of this tradition, it is extremely difficult to convince Cajuns to cook crawfish any other way as it would break hundreds of years of tradition. On the other hand, Houston is not tied to these traditions so it is more accepted when new techniques are tried. Culturally, New Orleans is a large contrast to Houston. Houston didn’t become a dominant economic center until the 1930s (Wikipedia), and the culture is fairly new and still growing. Most of Houston’s culture is still tied to the culture of the home countries of the immigrants in the city. So because of this, Houston is more willing to try new things and break tradition.
Work Cited:
Aquaculture — Marketing (SRAC Publication №2402). October 2005. Southern Regional Aquaculture Center.
Ugly Delicious Season 1, Episode 4
