April 20, 2015 — In 2010, just after the BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, seafood restaurants were bombarded with questions from concerned diners: “How bad is the spill?” “Is this from the Gulf?” “Is it safe?” Demand for Gulf seafood tanked.
“You have to remember, that was literally weeks and months on end when you could turn on the TV at any time of day and see an oil well leaking unabatedly into the Gulf of Mexico,” says Brett Anderson, feature food writer for Nola.com.
Looking around a packed dining room at the local Cajun Seafood House in New Orleans on a recent day, it’s clear that epidemic of worry is over. Ironically, now there’s a supply issue: Seafood dishes have to be pulled from menus when orders fall through, and fishermen are losing longstanding customers.
As the Louisiana Seafood and Marketing Board spreads a message of safe and bountiful Gulf seafood, the ones doing the catching and distributing say that oysters and crab populations are dwindling. They mainly place the blame on the aftermath of the spill.