Do crayfish feel pain? I don’t know. They have a nervous system that controls both voluntary and involuntary movements, but do they feel pain? I couldn’t find an online source that discussed crayfish pain. I have no answer. Why is it important to me? I don’t know, but I began to wonder about it in 1997.

In November of that year, I was visiting the Hostellerie de Vieux Moulin in Bouilland, France. At the time, the restaurant was under the command of Jean-Pierre Silva. One of the dishes he taught me involved half a dozen crayfish tails. Since, at the time, I had no source of crayfish, I didn’t bother to take notes, and I no longer remember any details about the preparation. What stuck with me was that the intestine was removed from the tail—what is actually the abdomen of the crayfish—while the soon-to-be-cooked decapod was still alive. The process, I learned, was very simple. I just grabbed the telson—that’s what looks like the central fin of five fins at the end of the tail—twisted it ninety degrees, and pulled. I could feel a little tearing as the telson tore free. When I pulled the now-free telson, the entire intestine slid out of the tail. The action didn’t seem to produce any reaction in the crayfish. Did the crayfish I just disemboweled feel any pain? I doubt it, but I still wonder.

Every few years, I run across a bin of live crayfish in a market. They’re never very expensive if you only consider the unit or per pound cost and not the yield. I always buy at least a handful. That was the case a couple of weeks ago. A month or so before, I had prepared a jar of ponzu sauce and had planned to use it with some oysters for an amuse-bouche. The recipe was to be based on one for sugaki that I found in a “Cooking with Dog” YouTube video. Then the crayfish walked into the scene.

The ponzu sauce recipe makes about 200 ml (7 fl oz) of sauce.

For each one, I twisted the tail from the body. The body was run under water to move any ghoulish material. I use a pair of scissors to cut the tail on the underside down the center. Then by gently spreading the shell, I was able extract the tail meat. Any frilly bits of meat were trimmed with the scissors.

I brought the already warm ponzu sauce to a boil. The crayfish bodies and tails were “reassembled” on the individual serving dishes, and a piece of tail meat was draped over the junction of the two pieces of shell. A little ponzu sauce was drizzled over the tail meat. Finally, a couple of thin slices of green onion top were added for decoration.