Peter's Saigon-Biloxi Shrimp

In 1975, Peter Nguyen's household near Vietnam and traveled a circuitous route, landing wherever religion groups and missions offered lodging to refugees: Guam, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Texas, Louisiana and yet Biloxi, Miss. Like hundreds of others, they were drawn to the familiarity of fishing. Working arsenic hands oregon headers, cutters oregon gutters, families specified arsenic the Nguyens labored arsenic French, Polish and Slavic immigrants had earlier them.

Language barriers and suspicion from the section assemblage made it hard to gain capable to live, overmuch little to recognize the imagination each begetter had for his son: owning a vessel of his own. But erstwhile helium was 20, Nguyen made his begetter proud: The 1990s brought affluent harvests that commanded precocious prices. Then successful 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated piers and boats, and similar many, Nguyen could not spend to rebuild and food again. He went to enactment astatine the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium. Vietnamese fishers marque up 70 percent of the state’s shrimp industry, and Nguyen translates their concerns to the consortium, which is moving to support Mississippi’s sportfishing industry.

When it comes to gulf shrimp, Nguyen is simply a existent believer: "You won't get better, sweeter-tasting shrimp anyplace else," helium says. "You bash a look with gulf shrimp and immoderate different shrimp. Same recipe, antithetic shrimp. You spot with your ain eyes, sensation with your ain rima which is better." This look helium conscionable "made up" based connected memories, and it has go a household favorite.

We recovered the gulf shrimp astatine BlackSalt Fish Market successful the Palisades (202-342-9101).

Ingredients

Nutritional Facts

Per serving

• Calories

  270

• Fat

  6 g

• Saturated Fat

  1 g

• Carbohydrates

  15 g

• Sodium

  1010 mg

• Cholesterol

  285 mg

• Protein

  39 g

• Sugar

  12 g

This investigation is an estimation based connected disposable ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s oregon nutritionist’s advice.

Adapted from "One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking," by Molly O'Neill (Simon & Schuster, 2010).

Tested by Bonnie S. Benwick.