Fried Shrimp and Grilled Shrimp and Crab, Oh My

On Oct. 9, 2009, at the National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores, Ala, we found the kind of culinary craftsmanship that would be at home in the kitchens of many fine restaurants. Nearly 40 vendors sold foods grilled, fried, and boiled, the cooks acquiring fresh local seafood, treating it lightly with good ingredients, giving it a quick bit of time over the fire, and offering plenty of smiles to the crowds along the way.

You’d expect shrimp to be featured at its namesake festival, and featured it was. Grilled, fried, blackened, coconut, peel and eat, Cajun: any way you like shrimp, you could get it. The grills, fryers, and pots were also hot with lobster tails and crab claws, crawfish pie and etouffee, gumbo and grouper, jambalaya, crab cakes, scallops and oysters, and shark on a stick.

Plenty of food not from the sea was available, too, including fresh salads, sausages, chicken, and rice.

As impressive as the taste of the food was the hospitality of the cooks. At South Beach Grill, Steve and his mom Chalor, who has been “the boss,” Steve said, of the enterprise for 35 years, took some time to chat while they cooked shrimp, grouper, paella, crawfish, and other food.

South Beach Grill has been working festivals all over the country, most recently in Johnston, Penn., at a bike rally. They have won Best of the Festival at Gulf Shores 3 of the last 4 years, for their coconut shrimp and crab cakes.

When we sampled the food of South Beach Grill, we understood why they’re winners. The crab cake, enough for two, combined crab and a flavorful filling tasting of celery and rich breading throughout. A skewer full of enormous shrimp spent barely three minutes on the grill, and then Steve wrapped it in foil and handed it over. It was tender and succulent and tasted of parsley and the sea.

At the side of the tent, Robert Ogren of Pensacola scooped out piles of brilliant red crawfish for hungry patrons and didn’t mind entertaining a bit while he worked.

It wasn’t all savory; cooks were serving great sweets, too, including typical fair food, funnel cake and the like. The Copelands of Copeland’s Ice Cream out of Theodore, Ala., dished up homemade chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream, churned under the power of a sturdy little John Deere engine.

Pensacola was well-represented by several vendors, including Cajun Specialty Meats, known all over the country for their legendary turducken.

Cajun Specialty Meats had a lot of good stuff going on. Boudin balls, crawfish etouffee, and fried crawfish, alligator, and shrimp were the general favorites. The etouffee is made, as their website says, with “crawfish tails smothered in the Cajun trinity (onions, bell pepper, and celery), tomatoes and our perfect blend of Cajun spices, mixed with rice.”

With boudin, a fresh pork sausage, the Broussard brothers of CSM make the best, biggest fritters I’ve ever eaten. Boudin balls sport a thin crispy crust around soft mixture of sausage, rice, and Cajun spices.

See what I mean about hospitality? As Carl shows, it was all good. “Spicy—Yes, Hot—Never!” the people of Cajun Specialty Meats say about true Cajun seasoning.

It was definitely hot on the boardwalk, the heat index reaching 105° by early afternoon, and likely hotter under those tents with the fires going, but at every tent we met people who love food, cooking, and making others happy, no matter the temperature.