And at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which ended on Sunday, the rich sauces and thick breadings of Cajun fare were often lavished upon the Chinese imports rather than the local crawfish. In the meantime, even many well-known Louisiana restaurants that cater to visitors in search of local flavor have come to serve Chinese crawfish in the region's most celebrated dishes: crawfish pie, bisque, etouffee and gumbo. A final decision is expected in September. Desperate to hang on to a living and a way of life, the industry has petitioned the Federal Government for an import tariff. Louisiana's crawfish industry is in the battle of its life, its position as the country's leading purveyor of the delicately sweet meat threatened by a flood of less-expensive imports from China. But even in this season of plenty, they and others fear that this hard-shelled symbol of their heritage is slipping away. For them, the glory of crawfish - as Louisianians call crayfish - is as much about taste as it is about tradition and culture.

The Landreneaus are deeply rooted in this southern Louisiana region of rolling farmland and backwater bayous claimed and cultivated by their Cajun ancestors. ''Heck, we boiled crawfish here three times last week.'' Landreneau declared, presiding over 60 pounds of the piping hot crustaceans, with his wife, three daughters, mother, sister-in-law and nephew.

Only in crawfish season is such a feast possible. It's a weeknight at Dwight Landreneau's house, not a weekend, but zydeco music fills the room, and someone has popped open a beer. THEY glisten, boiled bright red, heaps and heaps of spiced whole crawfish spread across a dinner table deep in the heart of Cajun country.

Luisana clawfish