In 1985, when traveling for a year with an international group (Up With People) with over 150 other young adults from all over the world, as fate would have it, we passed thru my hometown, Houma, Louisiana. Reflecting back, I now realize the vast effort family and friends made to host a very large “crawfish boil” for the group. It was amazing to see the different reactions to the “crawfish” as table fare, the spices and the shear massive amounts of the crustaceans spread over many folding tables outside in the relatively temperate spring weather. Somehow, the uniqueness of the quantity of that natural resource, found in many parts of the United States has come to be known as a mascot of sorts for South Louisiana. Louisiana has come to be so uniquely represented by the mudbug that while the very same creature is referred to as a “crayfish” in other parts of the States, even people in Canada know that the mud eating creatures must only be referred to in Louisiana as the “crawfish”. It is rather poetic to reflect on how a silent, unassuming hermit could speak so loudly on behalf of an entire people and be instantly recognizable to the world - there is just something very different in this land of people comprised mostly of people exiled from faraway places using what God provides to do more than just survive. “Crawfish” - the manna of the south.
 
“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna,
which neither you nor your fathers had known,
to teach you that man does not live on bread alone
but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.”
Deuteronomy 8:3