Last night I attended a Crawfish boil at Magnolia Brew Pub here in San Francisco. The little crustaceans were flown in for the event that day and boiled up for $9/lb. My friend and I easily finished 3 lbs with cornbread, mushrooms and potatoes on the side.
My friend, who has spent some time in Lousiana, informed me how to consume the crawfish. First you snap off the head, then you squeeze the head and suck the juice out. The flavor of the brains and the boil comes through. Then you take your thumb and squeeze the bottom of the tail, and continue squeezing up the tail to release the pinky sized meat inside, which you can then bite off. Wikipedia says "A popular double entendre laden phrase heard around crawfish season in Louisiana derives from this practice: 'Suck the head, pinch the tail'" They are fun and messy. I got some yellow crawfish juice on my white shirt and had to use the spray n'wash when I got home.
The spiciness of the crawdads will depend on the boil used, which will often contain ingredients like salt, cayenne pepper, lemon, garlic, and bay leaves. My friend says that few people in Louisiana make their boil from scratch, and most pick a favorite brand like Zatarain's depending on if they like a little more cinnamon or hot spice.
When the crawfish are prepared, they come in big barrels and they have to be rinsed many times because they live in the mud in the water, which earned them the title "mudbugs." This is often when crawfish escape. My friend says she once saw a crawfish crawling across the floor of the restaurant trying to escape a steamy fate. This reminded me of a story I heard about a group of lobsters in Berlin who escaped from an Asian Supermarket and were seen walking together down the the street. 
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