While conducting research for our recipe for Shrimp Po’ Boys, staff photographer Steve Klise and I traveled to Gulf Shores, Alabama, to attend the Annual National Shrimp Festival.
On the Road
Shrimp by the Ocean
We joined thousands of other shrimp-loving visitors at Gulf Shores, Alabama's annual “Shrimp Fest.”
By Published June 1, 2018
Where We Went
Gulf Shores, Alabama
Since 1929, thousands of spectators attend the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, where anglers compete for hundreds of thousands of dollars in award money.
A line of boisterous festival-goers stretches from the shaded window of a steel-clad food truck, where a woman exchanges platters of giant glistening, freshly boiled shrimp for cash. Inside, cooks use an industrial-looking pulley system to lower deep baskets of the shrimp into massive pots of heavily seasoned water, where they cook for just moments before being hauled out in a fog of spice and steam, mixing with the saline aroma of the sea wafting in off the beach.
I’m in Gulf Shores, Alabama, for the Annual National Shrimp Festival, known locally as “Shrimp Fest.” Started in 1971 as a bid to extend the summer tourist season, the festival attracts 250,000 people with a common love of shrimp, live music, and the stunning cotton-white sand beaches of coastal Alabama.
Amid a constant chant of “Roll Tide!” from the innumerable University of Alabama fans in attendance, bright food stalls and trucks sell everything from paella to Cajun Pistols: deep-fried rolls filled with a cheesy shrimp and crawfish étouffée. And, of course, overstuffed shrimp po’ boys, best paired with cold beer and sandy toes.
FROM THE OCEAN TO YOUR KITCHEN
Shrimp Po' Boys
This street-food sandwich has been a workday favorite in Louisiana for generations. We wanted it at home.View the Recipe
Read about some of our other trips around the country, in the name of recipe research: