Snapper being unloaded in Freeport, Texas
The Delfin II arrived at the Freeport pier this afternoon, its hold containing about 4,000 pounds of Snapper.
The crew had been at sea for five days, fishing the waters 80 miles off the Texas coast.
I’m with Roberto San Miguel, who for years has made the three hour run between the Gulf and Austin to supply some of the city’s most popular chefs with Snapper, shrimp and Grouper. His skills have been documented by the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Rachel Ray. I’ve seen otherwise well adjusted young parents at the Austin Farmers’ Market fight for the bags of shrimp he hauls to town several times a week from this dock.
With us is Captain Mark Friudenberg, who watches his crew unload the largest, most beautiful fish I have ever seen. The crew works like an efficient machine, carting large containers of ice on an aging, wooden dock that buckles underneath our feet. Captain Mark owns a seafood market one block away that smells of fresh ice and crawfish seasoning. It is clean, bordering on immaculate.
I try to pretend that the August sun here isn’t oppressive, that it doesn’t feel like hot tar sticking to my skin.
Roberto and Captain Mark are concerned that there isn’t a distinction being made by big media between Texas seafood, which I see clean and robust with my own eyes, and the drama surrounding the oil spill hundreds of miles to the East.
That perception is having an affect on their business, which is frustrating considering the quality of the seafood they pull out of the Gulf. The images of the spill are at the forefront of the minds of tourists, and its hard to communicate through that message. It’s hard for someone who doesn’t work on these boats to understand how far the contamination if from Texas.
For a day, these men are my heros, and I look forward to telling their story more in-depth, and with some inspiration, the story of hundreds of people just like them, making a living on our coasts, nurturing the waters and its economies.
Michael Castellon 