Jackson Free Press

As a seafood lover, I'm concerned about what impact the oil spill in the Gulf will have on one of the true glories of Southern cuisine, the fish, shrimp and oysters we get from around the mouth of the Mississippi. This valuable resource is already threatened by the Dead Zone in the Gulf, and now it's in double jeopardy from the BP disaster. So three days ago, I went down to East McDowell to talk with David Saxton, who is general manager of the New Orleans Fish House.

"Prices are already going up," said Saxton said. "We try to buy frozen shrimp ahead, and that helps out a lot now, but it won't help down the road."

"The problem with the shrimp is that they were going to do a bit of shrimping early," he said, "But they weren't catching anything but little shrimp because they weren't ready. They were catching a lot of 90-110 ct. shrimp and very few large shrimp."

"I don't think they're going to let them pull any shrimp," Saxton said. "The season is shut down now in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana."

In 2009, shrimp season in Mississippi opened on June 25.

"It's starting to look like it's worse than what people thought at first," Saxton said. "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources are keeping a close eye on things because we know it's going to affect us, the question is just how badly. It's not good to begin with given the way the economy is in the first place, then you have this to hit your seafood industry, which we depend on a lot in this part of the Gulf."

Saxton said he expects prices for seafood to keep escalating. "We do have other resources; we have farm-raised shrimp, which is a very good quality shrimp. Of course, it's not the same as that from the Gulf, but it will see the restaurants through."

"We saw a spot last week where restaurants were ordering three months of shrimp ahead, which is very rare for them, because they like to keep their food costs down day to day, and that's what we (New Orleans Fish House) are here for," Saxton said. We service the restaurants on a daily basis, they call us one day, and on that day they get their product. It's probably going to be harder for them to do that, the restaurants are going to have to plan better and further ahead."

Saxton pointed out that oysters are particularly vulnerable because "an oyster is a filter, and it can't move like crab, shrimp or fish, which will move when they see danger."

"We buy from an oyster processor who gets them from everywhere, not just one spot," Saxton said. "When we get them, they are labeled as to where they're coming from, and we have maps here that show us where those areas are in relation to the spill. Last week, we received some from where the oil wasn't affecting us as badly because 75% of our seafood comes from west of the mouth of the Mississippi, and the spill was drifting away from that area. But it's starting to move the other way."

"Restaurants in this area depend a lot on the Gulf fish. They use a lot of redfish, a lot of speckled trout, red snapper and grouper. We can get those from other areas, not the same exact species, but in the same family, but we're still getting plenty of fish from the Gulf."

"The affect is going to be long-term," he said. "We just don't know how bad it's going to be yet."

Saxton added that crawfish will still be good for about another month.

Previous Comments

ID

157852

Comment

Excellent post, Jesse. It's great to have you as a food blogger!

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2010-05-16T22:44:12-06:00

ID

157853

Comment

And, all, Check out the revamped and improved JFP Food Blog -- with dining news, food bloggers, cooking videos, JFP food stories, recipes, dining info, local restaurant menus, food comments, links to JFP Bite Club FB page entries, RSS feed of food-related events in Jackson, and more to come! The iTodd has been busy of late!

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2010-05-16T22:46:57-06:00