The robin redbreast is a sign of spring.
So is the red mudbug.
Just about the time brave daffodils are beginning to appear, the red Crazy Crawfish & Seafood food trailers owned by Bryan Freeman and Gary Rapp are stocked and open for business — at 8271 US-72 in Byhalia, Mississippi, and 2053 Houston Levee Road in Cordova, Tennessee.
Freeman and Rapp sell crawfish Fridays through Sundays beginning in February and running through the Fourth of July.
People, who travel from as far as Nashville to their trailers, also refer to the crawfish as “mudbugs” or “crawdads,” Freeman says. “I never heard it called ‘crayfish’ ’til I moved to Memphis,” he says. “That’s a new one on me.”
They get their crawfish from Louisiana. “We pride ourselves on the freshest and the best quality crawfish,” Freeman says. “We pride ourselves on quality and customer service.”
crawfish and more at their food trailers.
He and Rapp feature an extensive menu at their food trailers. “We do crawfish, shrimp, gumbo, crab legs, all the fixings.”
They also sell boudin. “It’s chicken or pork with sausage and some other ingredients — I don’t even know, but it’s so good — in a casing.” And it’s a popular item. “We sell probably 300 sticks a weekend.”
His dad and uncle taught him how to cook crawfish when he was about 8 or 9 years old, says Freeman, who is from Petal, Mississippi, just east of Hattiesburg. They cooked crawfish on weekends, “just for family.”
Freeman was about 14 when he cooked crawfish solo for the first time. And it “wasn’t so good,” he recalls. “It just wasn’t the same taste as my dad’s and uncle’s.”
The number one thing to remember when cooking crawfish is “making sure the crawfish is clean. You have to wash them really good. You want to get all the mud off. Make sure the water is clear before cooking.”
Next is getting the water hot. “Put in butter and seasoning.” Their seasoning is a secret, of course. “We have our own ‘home seasoning.’ We’ll just put it that way.”
After his secret ingredients, Freeman adds potatoes and sausage and brings the water to a rolling boil. “Dump your crawfish in. Let them boil for three minutes. Bring back to a boil. Cut the heat off. Put in your frozen corn and let it soak for 25 or 35 minutes. Then it’s done. [It takes] about an hour.”
Freeman moved to Memphis in 2008 and eventually opened his own construction company, Freeman Builds and Designs, which he still owns and operates. He’s also national director for Wow Factor Baseball, a travel baseball organization.
He got into the seafood business four years ago after a friend of his, who owned Southbound Seafood, told him he was getting out of the business. He wanted to know if Freeman wanted to buy it. “I called my good buddy Gary Rapp and asked him if he wanted to invest in a crawfish company, and he said, ‘Yes.’ So we bought Southbound.”
Rapp, who is from Bartlett, Tennessee, was the football coach for Freeman’s son Caden Freeman, 20. Caden, who now plays college baseball at Jones College in Ellisville, Mississippi, “helps a little bit when he can.”
A year after the Southbound purchase, Freeman and Rapp bought their first Crazy Crawfish trailer in Cordova from John Stanford, who was moving to Pickwick. “When we bought Crazy Crawfish, it was already established. We just took it over. It already had a customer base.”
Two years later, they bought another trailer, “Cajun Crawdads,” from Jimmy Pegram. Now, both trailers have the same name, Crazy Crawfish & Seafood.
Owning a crawfish food trailer was a good fit, Freeman says. “I love crawfish. I love cooking it. That and just the camaraderie and getting to meet new people. Doing festivals. We do Overton Square Crawfish Festival. We cook a lot of crawfish down there. This year it’s May 3rd. We’re doing 6,000 pounds. We do catering and all that good stuff.”
Rapp says he knew “nothing” about crawfish when he got in the business. “I had them a time or two at some events, but that was about it,” he says.
“The thing I like about it is being able to serve the people in the community,” Rapp says. “I have worked in the food industry through high school to college in my 20s, and then I got into sales. It’s serving the public and providing them good quality, tasty food.”
That also goes for his It’s a wRAPP restaurant, where he sells deli wraps, salads, and quesadillas.
Their cookies come from a recipe by Rapp’s sister-in-law Rachel Rapp.
They eventually want a brick-and-mortar location for Crazy Crawfish, Freeman says — and they want to expand.
All of their Crazy Crawfish items are online at crazycrawfishandseafood.com. “Customers can order their live crawfish sacks and all the sides and items they need for a crawfish boil,” Rapp says. That includes their newest item: Cajun boiled eggs — “a boiled egg we soak in water and our seasoning,” Freeman says.
So, just what is the proper way to eat a mudbug?
“I don’t know if my way is the proper way, but you pinch the tail and pull it away from the head,” Freeman says. “Then you twist off the head. “Take the first ‘ring’ or ‘shell’ off the tail. Squeeze the back of the tail and pull out the meat.”
Finally, you can “suck the head,” he says. “If you want to get the juice out.”
The quote Rapp came up with for their website says it all: “Tastes so good it makes your lips go Flippity Floppity Flip Flop Flop.”
