Consider these three seafood vignettes:
A fish that flourishes in the Gulf but is seen so rarely on local menus its mere presence becomes a conversation piece.
Blue crabs boiled in our customary Louisiana way but then fried and danced around a wok for a traditional Vietnamese dish married to one of our abundant local resources.
An outdoor seafood market where picky shoppers find an iced counter to inspect a spectrum of different fish eye to eye.
These are a few of the stories I’ve been covering during Lent this year.
Lent is our unofficial seafood season in Louisiana. With so many interesting things happening in the realm of seafood now, it was a good opportunity to showcase some of the people and places approaching it a bit differently.
In that first example, the unlikely local fish was porgy, which I found grilled under a garlicky, creamy white barbecue sauce at Seafood Sally’s, a casual restaurant that goes the distance with sourcing more interesting and more sustainable segments of the local catch.
The Vietnamese style crabs came courtesy of the West Bank restaurant TD Seafood and Pho House, and it was an illuminating feast to share over the course of a long, hands-on, gloriously messy meal.
The seafood market was a true find, all but hidden on a Gentilly side street at American Seafood, a business that primarily supplies restaurants. It started serving direct to home cooks through the pandemic and never looked back, reviving an old fashion way to shop for seafood.
There was much more, and you can find all these stories on nola.com.
I do expect interest in steak houses, burger joints and barbecue to revive a bit now, but the conclusion of Lent hardly throws the brakes on our seafood obsession.
Taking a deeper dive this season revealed much potential and that’s something we can keep exploring. It’s part of recognizing seafood as more than just a menu choice, but also an expression of the natural resources and heritage we share here. Add the culinary talent we’re lucky to have around here, and there’s a lot to bait the hook.
