Unfortunately, Lulu’s is always packed, so we had to sit at the bar. A few years ago, my wife and I drove down to Lulu’s in Gulf Shores to celebrate my birthday. Maybe it’s not as convenient or readily accessible as frozen and imported seafood, but once you try fresh fish of any kind, hopefully, you will never go back.īy the way, if you happen to be one of those people who like fried fish, don’t hide your face in shame. Fresh meat, fish, shrimp, crabs, oysters, and even fresh fruits and vegetables are undeniably better.
Is it worth the time and energy and the additional cost? Only you can decide. Given a choice, most consumers would buy fresh seafood if they knew where to find a local fish market, yet fresh seafood can be more expensive. Most, if not all of them, either own commercial fishing boats or, at the very least, have a mutual relationship with the local fishermen, including the mom-and-pop seafood markets scattered along the coastline from Apalachicola to Atchafalaya Bay.
All you have to do is stroll around downtown Mobile to find several excellent seafood restaurants and the occasional oyster bar. Most seafood you see or smell behind the glass was caught, frozen and then stored on a processing ship, for God only knows how long.įresh seafood shouldn’t be that hard to find for those lucky enough to live along the Gulf Coast: Even better yet, we’re blessed with a string of excellent seafood restaurants lining the Causeway. If you think you won the lottery, think again. But, instead of such tasty bounty, you find yourself staring into the abyss of frozen fillets of salmon from Alaska, farm-raised Atlantic salmon from Norway, processed steelhead from the Gulf of Alaska, shrimp from China, tilapia from South America, Chilean sea bass from the icy waters of Terra del Fuego. Maybe you had visions of whole red snapper with a twinkle in its eye from the Gulf of Mexico, heaping piles of pink and white shrimp straight from the shrimp boats that call Alabama home, or oysters straight from Mobile Bay so fresh as to still be covered in mud. Have you ever pushed your cart up to the fish market in your local grocery store, expecting to see unprocessed Pacific salmon flown in overnight from Bristol Bay, alongside gag or black grouper from the deep waters off the Dry Tortugas. That said, the great State of Alabama is invested tremendously in the future of the commercial fishing industry, not only in the Gulf of Mexico but also in the Mobile Delta.Īlthough commercial fishing is huge in our state, many of us wonder where to find quality seafood short of catching it ourselves. As a result, Alabama has always played a significant role in the harvesting and distribution of the seafood caught along the Gulf Coast. This is especially true for Southerners, however.ĭepending on which government agency you ask, the Gulf of Mexico provides 40 or 50 percent of the United States’ domestic seafood. It doesn’t much matter where you hang your hat these days, much less which side of the Mason-Dixon Line you live on the one food all American cuisines seem to hold in high esteem is fresh seafood. Gina Parks, Billy’s Seafood // Photo by Chad Riley
0 kommentar(er)
