It is not even dawn and Al Sunseri is hustling to load sacks of oysters in a truck as the potentially catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico forces him to ponder the unthinkable.
“I guess we’re probably going to end up out of business,” he says of his 134-year-old processing company, P&J Oyster, as he considers what could happen if the state’s shellfish beds are shut down for a long period of time.
The oil spill, already one of the worst in US history as it reaches the state’s coastline, has threatened to cut off supplies of Louisiana oysters, a vital economic resource and a beloved symbol of local culture.
PHOTO: AFP
Louisiana’s shellfish industry provides about a third of the nation’s supply each year and a complete shutdown would badly hit the pocketbooks of many.
However, it would also be a cruel moral blow to an area still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina, with oysters on the menu seemingly everywhere in New Orleans, from hole-in-the-wall saloons to the finest restaurants.
Oysters aren’t a delicacy here — they’re practically a necessity.
“That’s why I came here today,” Russell Henderson, a 62-year-old slurping down a dozen raw oysters at Casamento’s in uptown New Orleans, said on Saturday.
“I’m out running errands and I said, ‘I better get some oysters while I can,’” he said.
Oyster gathering areas have already been closed along Louisiana’s coastline east of the Mississippi River, and fishermen and processors fear the worst is yet to come.
Officials say, however, that the oysters that are still being brought to market are safe.
The oil also poses major risks to other seafood products, including crabs, shrimp and a wide range of fish, but an oyster shutdown may hit closest to home.
Louisiana produces about 113.4 million kilograms of oysters each year, amounting to about a third of the US total, said Mike Voisin, who serves on an industry board that advocates for oystermen.
“Oysters are culturally a part of who we are,” he said. “I’m seventh generation in the oyster business. Oyster liquor runs in our blood.”
They’re eaten any number of ways here: fried, on sandwiches called po-boys or raw. There are recipes including Oysters Bienville or Oysters Rockefeller. They are charbroiled sometimes.
“It’s people’s livelihood. There’s a whole economy based on it,” said Greg Placone, a 26-year-old law student who was eating raw oysters at Casamento’s on Saturday.
Casamento’s, a stripped down seafood spot with a white tile dining room where two oyster shuckers work expertly, has been in business since 1919.
Locals mobbed the place on Friday to grab what they feared could be their last Louisiana oysters for some time, owner C.J. Casamento said.
“First time we ran out of every beer we had in here,” he said of Friday night. “I ain’t never seen that.”
Sunseri of P&J said he hoped a first annual oyster festival set to take place next month could still go ahead. He wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.
He said he couldn’t remember the first time he ate an oyster.
“All I know is my daddy said I ate oysters before I could walk,” said the 52-year-old, whose family business is located in the city’s historic French Quarter. “And eating them raw — not just oysters.”
Chuck Brown, 66, ate raw oysters with his nephew at Casamento’s on Saturday and also said he wanted to get them while he still had the chance. Asked why people in New Orleans eat so much of the shellfish, he offered his own theory.
“Oysters, for a man, keeps us healthy,” he said with a sly smile. “I’ll put it as polite as I can.”
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS