LIGHT IT UP!
October 11, 2017
Lafourche Booking Log – Oct. 10
October 11, 2017
By JOHN DeSAntis
john@rushing-media.com
Brenda Johnson was having a pleasant time at last month’s Best of the Bayou festival in downtown Houma when she got a little hungry and was drawn to a vendor booth where the fare included golden fried shrimp.
“I was getting ready to order some shrimp when I asked the girl where they were from,” said Johnson, a retired city court worker.
The woman serving the shrimp wasn’t sure so she asked a man working the booth, who said with a smile that the shrimp were “Asian farm-raised shrimp.”
Johnson waved her hand at the booth and went elsewhere.
At the Lions Club booth a little further down a worker assured her that the shrimp there were from Robinson Canal and also Lake Boudreaux, so that was where Brenda Johnson placed her order.
“I couldn’t believe they were selling that shrimp at a ‘Best of the Bayou’ festival,” said Johnson, who contacted her parish councilman and asked if anything could be done.
Local fishermen and shrimp processors have carped for years about the effect cheap imports from overseas have on their livelihoods and since 2004 have been engaged in ongoing trade actions against exporters. Messages to “buy local” and for consumers to ask where their shrimp comes from are having an effect – certainly Johnson’s query proves that – but at official levels there does not appear to be any formal protocol in place to determine the origin of shrimp that might be prepared for sale, for the most part.
Anne Picou, Terrebonne’s downtown development guru and Houma’s Main Street manager, said that at farmer’s markets hosted in the downtown area shrimp are sold by local vendors or fishermen.
“We have a participant within the shrimping industry and those have all been local,” she said. “But for spaghetti cook-offs and chili cook-offs we haven’t required that they have to use Louisiana shrimp or crawfish or Louisiana cattle. We haven’t done that but if the parish administration or council required it we certainly would.”
The Best of the Bayou festival is not under Picou’s auspices, but Terrebonne Parish did make a contribution to the event.
Councilman Dirk Guidry was among local representatives who said it would be perfectly appropriate for rules to be made requiring at least U.S. wild-caught shrimp to be used at festivals to which the parish gives monetary or in-kind support.
Councilman Al Marmande – who is in the shrimp business – said he is seeking opinions on whether such a move would be legal, but that he doesn’t have answers yet.
“I don’t see how it could be against the law,” said Marmande, who is hoping he can get support in the future for a seafood festival that celebrates the local industry.
Council members acknowledged that it might be difficult to restrict vendors to Louisiana shrimp or locally harvested shrimp. Local shrimp caught in local waters often finds its way to processors located elsewhere on the Gulf coast including Alabama, however, which is why a requirement for wild-caught U.S. shrimp or shrimp that is certified through several available programs could meet the grade.
Concerns about overseas shrimp were heightened locally last week as an Associated Press story began circulating about North Korean workers performing what amounts to slave labor at Chinese shrimp farms, with the bulk of their salaries being paid to the North Korean government where the money could be used to help fund nuclear weapons programs. •
