Mar-Apr2016_Final-FlipBook

the Seafood issue

“Some of the most memorable times in my life were when we were camping out on the Chandeleur Islands and getting eaten up by gnats and mosquitoes.”

Besh was raised, as the saying goes, by a village. When he was 9-years-old, his father was hit by a drunk driver while riding a bicycle and became paralyzed for life. So it was his grandfather and his father’s friends who

And so everything changed. He went off to St. Stanislaus High School in Bay St. Louis. He joined the Marines and served in Iraq during Desert Storm. He enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America and

took over the job of teaching young John how to work the waters, how to love the land and how to piece together the concepts of recreation, ecology and nutrition. It was, to be sure, a decidedly low- tech, humble schooling. “There were no fishing camps,” he recalls. “That would have been high-falutin’. It was just: you leave your house, you go fish.” One of his dad’s friends taught him how to shrimp. Another how to fly fish. Another how to spear fish. Another how to hunt. They all contributed to the young man’s knowledge, understanding and love of the sport. “I got to live all these different lives through my dad’s friends, all having to do with hunting and fishing in south Louisiana marshes — from Alligator Point all the way down to the Rigolets,” Besh fondly recalls. “Some of the most memorable times in my life were when we were camping out on the Chandeleur Islands and getting eaten up by gnats and mosquitoes and scratching your ass off while catching stringers of trout.” All these years later, he is both reflective and nostalgic about his youth, and cognizant of the specialness and entitlement that growing up on Bayou Liberty afforded him. And about the delicate balance that now holds between recreational and commercial fishing — and the current state of our wetlands and environment.This is where John Besh, the restaurateur, reconciles with John Besh, the sportsman. “I got to grow up in a very naïve time,” he says. “The 1970s and the early ‘80s, where we still got be kids. And I got to be a kid learning who I was in the waters and in the marshes and in the swamps. I didn’t always appreciate it then, but I think each day now, I appreciate it more and more.” It was as a kid, fishing the bayous and then hanging out by his mother’s side in the kitchen afterward, when John separated from his many siblings and became, in many ways, the chosen one among his family. At least as far as food goes. “I think they (his siblings) appreciated it, but they weren’t ignited like I was,” he says. “It wasn’t something inherent in their nature that they just ‘ had to cook ,’ whereas my parents knew at a young age: ‘You should be a chef.’” This family hunch was confirmed when Besh, at age 11, sought out the legendary Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme at a book signing to meet him and get his autograph. It was at the Bayou Lacombe Crab Festival — along with the Pearl River Catfish Festival and the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival, an annual destination on the Besh family calendar. “Seeing this guy, literally bigger than life, the most important chef in the world!” Besh fondly reminisces. “I could suddenly relate to where it was that I came from.” • • •

graduated in 1992. Then his arc of success was blinding. He has opened restaurants at the speed of light; his flagship bistro, August, in downtown New Orleans, is considered one of the great eateries in a great eating town. He wrote his books. He won James Beard Awards. He appeared on America’s Top Chef and The Next Iron Chef and, after Hurricane Katrina, was one of the first guys back in town to cook for first responders and victims of the flood.The New York Times, in a 2007 profile, stated: “His post-Katrina narrative has turned him into a spokesman for his city’s culinary recovery.” He grew a family. He grew a business empire. He grew in stature and wealth and fame. But still …he fishes.That’s where the center of John Besh holds together. Admittedly with more resources than before. He’s got a couple fishing and hunting camps now across the Gulf Coast. He’s got three boats, but only one big enough to have a name: Oui Chef , a nod to the constant response of line cooks in French restaurants who answer to the demands of the head chef by saying, “Oui, Chef.” Yes, Chef. Yes, Sir. But he’s still down home and humble and would rather fish close to home on any given day that in some exotic angling location across the globe. “I’m not gonna drive somewhere and fight if the fish are right here,” he says. “Certain times of the spring and a good portion of fall, there’s nothing better than Lake Pontchartrain.The big trout, they find their way into the deeper holes in the lake. And you can always find redfish in the marsh. And there’s nothing like going out to Delacroix or down to Plaquemine in the spring.” For bait, he likes live shrimp or small croaker or lures made by his favorite fishing mate,Deadly Dudley Vandenborre, a true Louisiana fishing legend.They tie up off the bridges over Lake Pontchartrain

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY MARCH | APRIL 2016

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