Pinch, Peel, Eat, Repeat
Design by Alex Povis. Photo by Amy Long.
A tiny, reddish-brown crawfish wiggles its pinchers in the bottom of what looks like a giant fast-food fry basket on a pleasant but overcast morning in Paragould, Arkansas, about 15 miles west of the Missouri bootheel border. It’s all the little mudbug can muster.
There are a few more of its compatriots scattered throughout 12 baskets in a halved fuel tank, but most of these leftovers are no longer moving; the rest are in coolers waiting to be sold or cooked.
“It’s nothing fancy,” shrugs Devalyn Duke, co-owner of Delta Crawfish in Paragould. “It’s a dirty job, but the end result on the plate is awesome.” The repurposed fuel tank is a crawfish vat that Delta’s founder, Ron Pigue, specially made for cleaning and purging the crustaceans. The other half of the fuel tank is at another crawfish company in Parkin, Arkansas.
Duke and his wife, JaShena Turner Duke, also own Duke’s Hot Shot Delivery in their hometown of Jonesboro, Arkansas, about 30 minutes southwest of Paragould and the home of Arkansas State University. Duke was cooking crawfish sourced from Pigue in the parking lot of a liquor store (“What goes hand in hand? Beer and crawfish.”) when an unexpected opportunity arose. Pigue’s father-in-law, who delivered the crawfish, told Duke that they weren’t necessarily looking to sell the business but would if the right buyer came along.
“What did I think? I thought he was crazy,” JaShena says as her husband laughs. “Well, first off, he said we wouldn’t have to work. But you can see I’m up here working!” The office phone interrupts her. “The phone rings off the wall – you can’t get anything else done because of the phone,” she says, picking up. “Delta Crawfish?”