The Best Oysters Are Found in New Orleans — How We Eat

this is a tale of Croatian immigrants an Italian family and one City's undying love for oysters they always said it was a brave man who ate the first oyster and in this city there's a gold standard when it comes to [Music] Oyster by the early 1800s the croatians began to move to Southern Louisiana it was really those Croatian immigrants that built that original oyster industry life was difficult and most of the population resided in camps outside of settled areas to their advantage though this put them in Touching distance from something croatians were quite comfortable with open water fishing villages like Empire and burus became hugely populated and were in an area known as Pacman's Parish which encompasses 70 Mi of the Mississippi River hundreds of waterways and an incredible natural breeding ground for a vast array of seafood including oysters it's been given other names as well God's PT your golf oysters you're not going to get any better than down here cuz it come out of God's Pond as a fisherman for oysters that's an area they're digging to fish that day that's plentiful Mississippi River right when it hits the Gulf of Mexico where all your tributaries go and all your marsh land God's Pond I'll tell you nothing beats a Louisiana oyster that's my addiction is eating oysters you go to a an oyster shuck you sit at the bar and you have him grab it out the ice pop that bad boy open you suck it right out the sh a lot of people come here just to eat oysters if that's what you're coming down here to do the first person you're going to meet is an oyster shooker I mean they truly are ambassadors one time a girl walked through that door and say Hey Charles and another girl walk through that door and say hey James and I say put in t you ask me get I'm going tell you the same I'm uptown tea Uptown tea the one and only one beneath the Sun up and imitated never can be duplicated and I'm your usher sucker in 3D and you can call me Thomas cuz I'm uptown T oh the first time ever Shu the oyster back in 1990 two days later I'm the best oer shuck in the world when people say the best o shuck in the world is not shuing mind you alone it's personality it says an afjc but just be careful like the old cats used to say you put lead in your pencil but if you don't have no stationary to ride on or no one to the right too you in trouble from eating all them moers s back last cuz you going to see me up town PE and you can call me Thomas but let's take it back to the early 1900s different waterways became available for Leasing and it was this way that specific families developed their reputations for having the best oysters two of those family names were poic and jurich also known as p&j Oyster Company the Brand's now run by the fourth generation Sal and Al sineri and Al Sun Salvador job description shock and job baby that's it we are the ICONic Oyster Company in the country we're the oldest continually operating since 1876 so we've been doing this for a few years at this point oysters were plentiful and in excess so a lot went to waste there wasn't a technique for preserving storing or shipping oysters yet so most of them would spoil that's where the sinceri family comes in the Jes being our cousins they bring OES from down in plaman St Berard parishes up to the New Orleans area the French Market oyers ended up going to waste and would be thrown into the river and what p& J did they started to Shu oysters and can them the oysters were landed right next to the bananas and that was what the ceries were mainly involved with the banana business in the banana business but they got to know each other our grandfather got into the business and had this great customer base where they shipped the oysters the exact same way as they shipped the bananas on Railway Express to Big markets in New York City Philadelphia Illinois and and over into California yes the banana was the key to the success of the oyster the government would control seedling oyster beds and allow oystermen to take a certain amount to their lease plots where they would develop a unique flavor it was also one of the earliest cases of the federal government protecting a local environment the late 1890 uh the state decided it would develop a mapping system that would determine where people could lease by 1902 the oyster commission was legislated as one of the first environmental regulatory group within the United States of America their whole idea was to protect and conserve while expanding that business the Louisiana oyster from from that time on became the Workhorse oyster of the entire United States the train started running you were able to ship oysters refrigerated it was very popular at that time in saloons to be served oysters free of charge so that you would continue drinking along the way oysters became the universal food and were utilized by almost every culture in the gulf and sparked some creative and everlasting dishes oysters Rock Feller was invented by Jules alatar in 1895 there was a snail shortage in France and Jules zi adir who was the proprietor and chef at Antoine's Restaurant was worried about what he was going to do since he couldn't get snails and he said to himself maybe the oyster can step in for the snail you know it's got two things that's behind it it's named after the richest guy in the world John D Rockefeller and then we also so tinted green for the color money and it's definitely upscale on that aspect just like any other food it's mixed feelings it's either you love it or you don't care for it you know when I first tasted it was something I want to acquir to now I think it's delicious voila or should I say cha cha cha cuz we not finished yet when you talk about lunch in Nashville you're talking about meet and threes [Music]

Channel: Eater

Views: 551,675

Keywords: oysters, gulf oysters, new orleans oysters, nola oysters, gulf coast, nola, new orleans, how we eat, eater, eater.com, eater new orleans, eater nola, nola.eater.com, food, foodie, chef, restaurant, food news, restaurant news, seafood, shellfish

Id: AUJNCudwvUc

Length: 6min 32sec (392 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2017