Seafood Innovation After The BP Spill

On this week’s Louisiana Eats!, we’re remembering the devastation of the BP oil spill, which took place five years ago this week. Six weeks after the spill, we produced our very first episode of Louisiana Eats!, and there was no way we could ignore the disaster that was unfolding in the Gulf.

We interviewed Chef Frank Brigtsen on that first show, who shared some very personal thoughts on what the spill might mean for his friends in the Louisiana seafood industry, for his own business – Brigtsen’s Restaurant – and for him personally as a chef and Louisiana native. Chef Frank returns this week with the good news of the recovery he has personally observed. He also talks about the new dishes he created when Gulf seafood was scarce that continue to inform his menu today.

Next, we hear seafood specialist Dr. Jon Bell’s speculations about the future of the Louisiana oysters in 2010. Then, Rusty Gaude of LSU’s Louisiana Sea Grant program brings us up to date on the reality of the Gulf fisheries and the innovations and new practices that have been put into place over the last few years.

Finally, we sit down with Chef Darin Nesbit, Executive Chef of Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House and shrimper Lance Nacio, one of Louisiana’s most innovative fishermen, to hear about their collaborative effort to turn Lance’s bycatch – something frequently referred to as “trash fish” – into treasure on the plates of the Bourbon House.

Tired of gloom and doom about the spill? It’s all happy talk, all the time, as we commemorate the five-year anniversary of the BP oil spill.