Heads and Tails

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If you're in south Louisiana and someone says "Pinch the tail, suck the head," here's what you need to know: they're simply trying to teach you the best way to eat a boiled crawfish (or crayfish, as they're known outside Louisiana). And there'll be plenty of that going on at the annual Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival bbcrawfest.com, held from May 5-7. Nicknamed "mudbugs" because of their natural habitat in the mudof the southern state's bayou or creeks, crawfish were once scorned as food for the poor. Today, however, they've been proudly adopted as a Cajun delicacy.

Visitors to the festival in the city of Breaux Bridge will have a chance to sample a slew of popular Southern dishes — from boiled crawfish to crawfish étouffée (a stew similar to gumbo but thicker). Other festival highlights include a crawfish eating contest, cooking demonstrations, Cajun dancing and the hotly contested crawfish races. Start pinching those tails.