Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published May 21, 2008 But Not Quality Shrimp Numbers Cut By Spillway Opening, Floodwaters From River The brown shrimp season began Monday, with more news and fanfare than usual. The Louisiana Seafood Marketing Board-- trying to position the shrimp from our waters as the premium product that it is--had a big, silly media event on Tuesday. The first batch of this season's shrimp were wrapped in gold foil and delivered from a bank vault by armored car to K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. Meanwhile, other shipments went to the governor, the mayor, and even the President. The public was invited to watch what little there was to watch. The goal is laudable and overdue. Our shrimp have historically been treated like a commodity, putting it into competition strictly by price against the distinctly inferior shrimp flooding in from Asia. It makes perfect sense to make as big deal about the quality of Louisiana shrimp as it does for Ruth's Chris top note the USDA Prime aspect of their beef. The story we have to tell about local shrimp is convincing and true. The estuaries along the Louisiana Gulf Coast are the ideal environment for the best possible wild-caught shrimp. But most of the supermarket and restaurant industries seems to pay attention to nothing but price, saving its customers a buck or so a pound (or increasing their profits) by selling the farm-raised imports. Astonishingly, this is even true of local supermarkets, who ought to know better. Or at least be on the right side of the argument. The Seafood Marketing Board guys mean well, but need more savvy gambits. Their Bonne Crevette campaign is mysterious to most who hear it, and lost on anybody who doesn't live here. (It's French for "good shrimp.") How about a big shrimp tasting, involving people everybody around the country would recognize? We need to take a page out of the book the California wine industry used when it moved from jug wine to great wine. Meanwhile, shrimpers are still in dire economic bayous. The imported shrimp continue to be really cheap, even as they destroy the environments in many of the places where they're raised. The recent hurricane disaster in Myanmar, for example, was made much worse by the absence of the mangrove forests that used to cover the land where the hurricane came in. Many of those were cut down to make shrimp farms. The real cost of those shrimp were very high indeed. The heavy rains here and to the north of us will probably lower this year's harvest, but not disastrously so. The spillway opening will reduce the population of shrimp in the lake. The river diversion projects designed to rebuild marshland have really been pouring the fresh water out there, and that won't help either. (It's also the reason oysters haven't been salty lately). None of that will affect the flavor of the brown shrimp, which are great for all shrimp dishes. Make a scene if the stores or restaurants you go to aren't selling Louisiana shrimp. When they say they're too expensive, tell they you thought the place sold first-class groceries, and that you'll go elsewhere. We've got to hang together on this. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com