I felt like an exploitative voyeur taking these photos. Nowadays plenty of tourists flock to the Lower Ninth Ward to rubberneck at the devastation and admire the modern-looking, energy-efficient houses that Brad Pitt’s foundation, Make It Right, is building. Not long ago a storm caused a barge to break through an industrial canal, and homes and lives were destroyed. I will never truly understand that experience.

Crawfish, aka crayfish, aka crawdads. I wasn’t sure food could make me squeamish anymore, especially after my recent travels to Taiwan and the couple of semesters I spent in Madrid. In culinary school I gutted squid, filleted all sorts of fish, peeled and cleaned shrimp, and shucked and consumed raw oysters and clams. Friends and I held a live lobster race on a road trip to Maine before immersing the spiny creatures – both winners and losers – in boiling water. But when the waitress plopped two one-pound blue mesh bags of bright red crawfish onto our table this past Saturday at Deanie’s in Bucktown, just outside of New Orleans, I was taken aback for a moment.

It wasn’t the aroma that put me ill at ease. In fact, these were probably the freshest smelling seafood specimens I had ever encountered. The sweet brininess paired with a heavy Cajun spice mixture was incredible. It was only when my friend and guide, Jessica, opened the bags and dumped the crawfish onto the table with a clatter of shells, that I began to feel a bit woozy.

I think I was expecting tiny lobsters, and though these crustaceans certainly had lobster-like features, the predominant characteristics were buggy. Jessica, who had been living and teaching in NOLA for four years by then, fearlessly reached for what appeared to be a bright red insect, soggy with liquid and spices from the boil, and showed Jason and I how to grab and separate the head from the tail, suck the brains, and peel away the tail segment to retrieve the optimal amount of meat. I followed and quickly got the hang of it. And I loved it.

When the fried sampler platter Jason and I ordered to split arrived, I tried a little of everything but really wasn’t very interested. I wanted straight up crawfish boil, more experience and flavor than sustenance. These are my favorite kinds of foods – regional and in-season specialties that are almost more about the event than the consumption itself.