by: University Press of Mississippi
Coastal Louisiana’s shrimp industry’s historic connection to the Pacific Rim endures is enshrined in a new book by Carl A. Brasseaux and Donald W. Davis – ASIAN-CAJUN FUSION: SHRIMP FROM THE BAY TO THE BAYOU. The book illustrates the history of the Asian influence on Louisiana’s shrimping industry.
Published by the University Press of Mississippi with funding provided by the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program under a award from NOAA with additional support is from the Louisiana Sea Grant Foundation, it was inspired by the Louisiana shrimp industry’s monumental challenges of the past quarter century—travails that directly threaten the very existence of North America’s most productive decapod fishery.
The authors examination of the industry’s evolutionary trajectory—a coast-to-coast research effort—required substantial help and guidance from a broad spectrum of institutions and individuals. Photo: ASIAN-CAJUN FUSION
Both authors are experienced in the trials and tribulations facing the Gulf Coast. As one of the nation’s foremost colonial historians, Carl A. Brasseaux has published approximately fifty books on Louisiana’s Acadian and Creole cultures. Donald W. Davis, a cultural geographer, has produced more than six hundred lectures and symposia pertaining to coastal Louisiana.
“The historical roots of Louisiana’s shrimp industry extend to the nineteenth century. The commercialization and subsequent globalized distribution of this indigenous marine product is a fascinating, but largely forgotten, saga that links the people of south Louisiana’s bayous to Old World Chinese communities via San Francisco as well as to American consumers nationwide,” said the authors in the acknowledgment. “Our examination of the industry’s evolutionary trajectory—a coast-to-coast research effort—has required substantial help and guidance from a broad spectrum of institutions and individuals. To these unsung investigative heroes, we extend a heartfelt thank-you.
According the Gulf author, shrimping has directly or indirectly impacted the lives of every resident of Louisiana’s coastal plain. Yet the shrimping industry’s contributions are either unappreciated or underappreciated by locals and outlanders alike. This apathy is compounded by a lack of grassroots knowledge of the industry’s origins and the root causes of the ongoing crises—foreign imports and possible resultant demise of the wild-caught shrimp fishery.
The state’s fishing community’s remarkable resilience is the most significant of these threads. Residents of Louisiana’s working coast typically share a can-do, never-give-up mindset that has permitted physically isolated communities to endure hurricanes, oil spills, coastal subsidence, and erosion—as well as state and national politicians’ apathy and condescension. Over the course of the past 150 years, they have simply adapted in the wake of successive calamities. It is folly to discount their tenacity and grit in the face of present challenges
According to Dr. Rex Caffey of Louisiana Sea Grant at LSU and member of the Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition, who wrote the forward to the book, “Globalization of seafood has contributed to economic downturns in many fishing-dependent communities of the United States. Commoditization of the global shrimp market has been especially problematic for Louisiana, the cultural origin of the American shrimp trade. While Louisiana continues to be the national leader in shrimp landings, dockside prices have averaged $1.50 per pound for nearly four decades. Adjusted for inflation, this stagnation equates to a 70 percent reduction in the real price of shrimp paid to Bayou State harvesters since 1980.”
Chin Seong Moon came to Louisiana via Vancouver, Havana and finally Mexico. He was interviewed in 1909 at the New Orleans Parish Prison. What was fate? Who knows. Photo: ASIAN-CAJUN FUSION
He went on to say, ‘In Asian-Cajun Fusion: Shrimp from the Bay to the Bayou, Carl A. Brasseaux and Donald W. Davis take the deepest dive yet into the history of this storied American fishery.Whereas contemporary accounts tend to focus on the wild versus farmed shrimp conflict of the late twentieth century, Brasseaux and Davis start the story much earlier. This is no Gumpian narrative.”
Once a national fisheries juggernaut, the Gulf Coast shrimp industry is presently under siege, for fully 90 percent of all shrimp consumed by Americans—approximately 1.25 billion pounds annually—are imported. The domestic shrimp industry is largely a victim of its own initial success. Once a sidebar item available primarily in “ethnic” restaurants, shrimp have become a popular, almost universal culinary staple throughout the United States.
As late as the 1960s, nearly three- fourths of all shrimp sold in the United States were caught in America’s coastal waters, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. However, the annual domestic catch is ultimately a finite resource, and as America’s demand exploded, wholesale food distributors supplemented domestic shrimp species with their Asian and South American pond-raised cousins—to the point where the once ubiquitous American commodity is virtually again a niche product, despite its inherent gastronomic superiority.
As early as 1870, Chinese natives built shrimp-drying operations in Louisiana’s wetlands and exported the product to Asia through the port of San Francisco. This trade internationalized the shrimp industry and it continues to export dried shrimp to Asian markets domestically and internationally.
Nguyen Coa Ky was chief of Vietnam’s Air Force before becoming prime minister. He became a shrimper in Dulac. After failing at that he moved to California. Photo: ASIAN-CAJUN FUSION
Asian Cajun fusion became popular in Louisiana when thousands fled Indochina after the end of the Vietnam War. Many of these immigrants ended up in Louisiana, where they found a second homeland in the seafood-rich wetlands of the Gulf Coast. Since the turn of this century, the region’s large Vietnamese immigrant population has increasingly dominated Louisiana’s fresh shrimp harvest. Embracing the new Cajun cuisine and complementing it with their own Asian spices like lemongrass, lemon pepper, ginger, cumin and saffron became a way for these immigrants to relate to both their former and newfound cultures.
Louisiana shrimp constitute the American gold standard of raw seafood excellence. Yet, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, cheap imports are forcing the nation’s domestic shrimp industry to rediscover its economic roots. “Fresh off the boat” signs and real-time Internet connections with active trawlers are reestablishing the industry’s ties to local consumers. This approach appears to be leading the way to reestablishment of sustainable aquatic resources.”
“The book is a testament to the industry’s past resilience against many of the same challenges it faces today in terms of disasters, technology, labor, and competition. In an era in which globalization threatens the economic viability of domestic harvesting, readers are left with a sense that we have been here before—and that as long as there is a resource and human innovation, there will be a fishery,” said Dr. Caffey.
All-one-can-eat shrimp buffets aren’t going anywhere, but the Louisiana shrimp industry’s fate will ultimately be determined by discerning consumers’ palates.
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