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Posted on 07/02/2004 11:36:11 AM PDT by GeraldP
It’s open warfare as Italians in North Central Italy say they will never stop fighting the Louisiana invaders. “All of Tuscany is under siege,” one local farmer told me. “We wish they would all go back to Louisiana.” What’s this villain assaulting this beautiful part of Italy? Killer Crawfish!!
That’s right. Louisiana crawfish. Apparently, around 1990, a local farmer imported these bayou crustaceans with the hopes of offering a hardier and meatier shellfish than similar mudbugs that were being raised in Spain and other areas of Europe. And like the explosive spread of nutria in south Louisiana, crawfish expanded quickly to lakes throughout Tuscany.
No problem with that because the Italian consensus was the little buggers tasted good. “They are tasty. Exquisite with spaghetti,” I was told by Leo di Mario, the owner of Leo’s Ristorante in Florence.
But the crawfish started dining themselves, eating local fish, frogs, and anything else they could latch on to. One local fisherman south of Venice told me: “I pull up the net and the fish are half eaten with the crawfish hanging on to them. I’m loosing a lot of my catch.”
A local biologist reported: “The crawfish, they eat everything in the water. They even devour their own weaker members. They are so aggressive.”
Kind of like some of our Louisiana politicians or perhaps our federal prosecutors, I told him.
So now the Louisiana crawfish are on the move speeding throughout Tuscany. No one can figure out how these little guys are spreading so fast. But they show up in many regional lakes and roadside ditches.
The battle lines are being drawn at Lake Massaciuccoli on the northwest Italian coast, close to the cities of Viareggio and Lucca. Puccini used to fish here. A local café on the lake is called Butterfly, after one of his better known operas. And yes, they do serve crawfish.
Local biologists are turning loose large numbers of pike, a popular local fish that eats mudbugs. Some 20,000 pike will be put into Lake Massaciuccoli this year to fight the enemy.
But don’t sell our Louisiana critters short. The Italians may want to say “arrivederci,” but it’s going to be hard to keep these Louisiana rascals down. Crawfish, like many of us in Louisiana, are survivors. My bet is that they will be a problem, as well as a tasty part of the Italian cuisine, for a long time to come.
Mmmmmmm, crawfish.
Western imperialists!!
Send boiling rigs and Zatarain's...the s**t has hit the fan.
(Apologies to the late Warren Zevon.)
Editor....white courtesy phone
(loosing) Must be a FReeper.
CRAWDADS!!!
Don't import pikes, import cajuns. The will clear ou that lake of a life that is remotely etable.
Ateable?
well, maybe we can export kudzu...and tell them it tastes better than basil..
BLAUGH! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYUK!!!!!!!!!! There went lunch!!!
Too much work for too little meat. I prefer:
What's the fish from China that they drained two ponds in MD to try and kill?
>>>One thing though, I've never been able to bring myself to "suck the head" - it's just too disgusting.
Me neither, but in some parts of Louisiana it is almost sacrilegious not to.
Sorry, caffine level low.
Just tell a few cajans they taste good in gumbo and they will be gone in a few months.
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