Tropical Foodways

Please forgive me if this post doesn't apply to you, but if you're someone who would like to support our local shrimpers and the Louisiana Shrimp Festival 2024 by offering a good or service for our raffle, or a straight up monetary donation, that'd be spiffy, actually better than spiffy! The LSF was created with shrimpers, chefs, local support organizations and other concerned citizens to help educate and activate the general public about the critical crisis facing our shrimpers, which could very well mean the end of the bayou for many of them. We've already lost a good number over the past couple of years, some due to health reasons, some pure economic strife, some due to the greying of the fleet and, tragically, others to su***de. But they won't and we can't give up, because if our sh*****ng industry collapses, so goes much of the rest of the Gulf seafood industry, and with it the largest supply of US wild-caught seafood in the country. That's the largest harvest of shrimp, crab, oysters, tuna, and other species. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN ON OUR WATCH!! If you feel you can help, please contact me directly at [email protected] Please keep in mind y'all, this is a national issue, with huge implications for the economic health of the region. Accordingly, if you have something to offer but aren't from the Southeast, we'll take it because someone wants it!! Finally, please come out to the Fest, we're counting getting people in the gate to hear some amazing music, eat some fantastic shrimp and other dishes, and checkout some true shrimper stories and shrimp strategies and solutions in the Shrimp Aid Pavilion. This is a festival unlike any you've experienced because of what's at stake. Please do your part to SOS: Save our Shrimpers!!!
Discount tickets and more information at:

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Thanks to Marian and Jonathan Evans for humoring me in my sometimes meandering answers to their excellent questions. There's a lot about our experiences at Carmo in the beginning, but at about 17 minutes in we begin talking about timely coastal issues and where we're headed, I appreciated the opportunity to talk about some issues which I hadn't had an opportunity to expound upon publicly previously.

‎On Our Watch on Apple Podcasts ‎Science · 2024

Here's a great article by Melissa Clark which includes some explanation of what's happening around the country in terms of including not-so-common-but-delicious seafood showing up on menus, including what we're doing locally. The main thing to keep in mind is that all of us are living in coastal regions where ecosystems are in a state of flux/change. The way that we deal with those changes will define the fate our fishers and fisheries. Adaptive fishery models will be required and education of the public is essential. The good news is that we have the potential for an abundant, diverse and delicious future of domestically-produced seafood ... that's IF we keep the best interest of healthy coastal ecosystems and the well-being and livelihoods of our independent fishers in mind, fist an foremost.

Why Is It So Hard to Find Local Fish (Even by the Water)? Seafood caught in nearby waters has long been left out of the farm-to-table movement. But these people have set out to get it into stores and restaurants.

This is something I put together a few years ago and was just asked to repost. So I've updated the numbers to current calculations:

Top 10 Reasons Why Switching from Styrofoam to Bio-Friendly Containers will Improve Your Restaurant

TOP TEN REASONS TO SWITCH FROM STYROFOAM

1. Styrofoam is dangerous. Verifiably. Studies show that “styrene,” a probable carcinogen, as well as other harmful chemicals, leak from foam containers when they come into contact with hot food. And don't even think about microwaving it, you'll just be marinating your food in harmfulnchemicals, might as well dip it in Drano. Additionally, as one might suspect, children are especially, developmentally vulnerable to these chemicals. Frankly, #1 should be reason enough for us to ban Styrofoam nationwide, but this is America, and we have the God-given right to harm ourselves (and our friends and neighbors) so let's continue.

2. Using foam containers makes your restaurant look out of date, like you missed the memo on not only what's cool, but what's ok by contemporary standards. It gives your restaurant cringeworthy status to a portion of the consumer base who will refuse to order takeout from you, and may refuse to eat at your establishment all together. You may think those folks don't exist, like the legendary kraken, but they do, you just don't know them.

3. Hell, the vast majority of fast food restaurants have made the change to at least cardboard containers, so what's your excuse? Do you really think that the tens of millions of dollars of cost analysis and marketing that the fast food industry spends would have led them to change if it weren't financially sustainable? C'mon, don't let your fear of change get in the way of doing the right thing and of your success.

4. Using eco-friendly containers will send a message that the food inside the box is of higher quality. OK, it may sound a little far-fetched but follow me. Most good chefs and restauranteurs know that the way you present your food has a lot to do with how it's received. Plates, silverware, napkins, glassware, it all has a positive (or negative) effect on peoples overall dining experience. Why would takeout be an exception? It also sends a message that if you care about the quality relative “healthiness” of your togo boxes, you may care a little more about the ingredients you're using to execute your menu.

5. Our world, our environment, our home. Styrofoam is a version of polystyrene, which is made up of over 50 chemicals, many of which are released into the environment upon manufacture. They leach into our soil, into our water, they and their corresponding micro-plastics end up in our waterways, and ultimately into the ocean, where they impact every level of our marine ecosystems, ultimately impacting a large portion of our food supply. Did I mention that it has a million-year plus lifespan?

6. Money. OK, let's break this down. The average styrofoam togo container costs about 8-12 cents each. The average sustainable alternative is roughly twice that. Let's say you do a relatively decent takeout/delivery (during non-Covid times) let's say 50 covers during a day. Let's now say that you're open 6 days a week. Let's use the upper range of cost difference between Styrofoam and a sustainable alternative, 12 cents per unit difference. That equates to: .12 x 50 = $6/day x 312 open days = $1872. Based on industry per cover averages, in an average restaurant that means that you'd only need one additional cover per week to completely pay for the switch to zero foam. One. Meal. Per. Week.

7. Your restaurant can be part of the change, and you should feel better knowing that your food containers aren't littering your city and negatively impacting infrastructure. In New Orleans and many other cities, for example, foam food and beverage containers routinely fill storm drains, clogging their potential for dealing properly with inevitable deluges. The ultimate effects of improper drainage ends up costing the city and its residents millions of dollars annually.

8. They're going away anyway, and you definitely don't want to be listed in that last article about dinosaur restaurants that were forced to change their selfish ways by decree. Citywide and countywide bans are popping up everywhere these days, and the change to sustainable alternatives is inevitable, so why not be ahead of the curve (or at least on it) and make the change now.

9. You'll actually gain customers. Going back to #2 for a second, and a note about those customers you will acquire because they notice that you're taking a positive step towards diminishing your environmental footprint. They'll be your most loyal customers ever, they believe in you beyond your food, they see that you're doing something in spite of your bottom line (even though you're not), to improve our shared community. They'll gladly rave about your food (providing it's good, of course) and spend a good bit of money annually. We even have a few customers who bring their own containers in for takeout who've been with us since the beginning, and have brought literally dozens of folks with them to our restaurant.

10. It can be the beginning of something great. Each step we take towards making our individual actions and circumstances friendlier to the environment, is a step towards the future. And as you start down that road you'll realize that not only is taking this first step easy (and reasoned and right and profitable) you'll wonder why you didn't do it long ago. You'll see that being “sustainable” readies you responsibly for your own future. You'll want to start to do other things to lessen your negative impact, environmentally, socially. Your employees and your customers will begin to get excited. And you may realize that there are other things you'd like to do to decrease your ecological load, to be cleaner and more nimble with your resources, to engage your community ... then you'll be off on a path which recasts what your endless days an nights look and feel like, and give you a reason to be excited about the journey.

Yesterday we were with the Tariana People, as well as other tribes, of the Amazon and Rio Negro, celebrating Indigenous People's Day. As native peoples around the world face outside challenges in maintaining or regaining control of their lands, staring down the visage of colonial past and present, what's at stake is their varied ways of life, their cultures. What's also at stake is our collective humanity and quite literally the world we all consider "home," as it is only the indigenous people of this Earth who have the will and knowledge to save places like the Amazon, which literally creates the air we all breathe and biodiversity of life on which we all depend. If you find it offensive that we don't mention Columbus on this day, you've probably never been exposed to the actual recorded history of his and other "conquerers'" murderous exploits.

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!!!

Native America Project: Indian Tribes with Federal Recognition - Google My Maps Federally Recognized American Indian tribes, lower 48 contiguous states. Geoff Mangum's Native America Project.

The Gumbo Project has finally launched, at least partially. The first item we're working on is the "Gumbo Map" ... it's easy, take 5 min. to fill out the form in the link below and your information will be included in the map. Hopefully it will eventually shed some light on how folks define "gumbo" regionally.

The Gumbo Project - Submit Your Info for Our Map! Loading...

http://tropicalfood.blogspot.com/2015/01/carnival-global-journey.html

Carnival - A Global Journey An overview of carnival traditions around the world. It could be said that the events we now refer to as Mardi Gras, Carnival, Junkan...

http://tropicalfood.blogspot.com/2015/01/carnival-in-goa.html

Carnival in Goa Ancient History to Carnival in a Paragraph The earliest traces of human life in the region now known as Goa has a history that goes back 2...

Carnival in Angola Millions of people were stolen into slavery from the West African coastline, including a large number from what is now Angola. They ended ...