By Nicole Breskin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — Oil continues to devastate the Gulf waters off Louisiana, but it didn’t stop Manhattan diners from enjoying the state’s fish.
Tulane University held a seafood boil for New York-based alumni at The West 79th Street Boat Basin Café Saturday, with crawfish, shrimp, catfish and crabs hailing from the New Orleans-based school’s home state.
“We’re known for our jazz, Southern hospitality and, of course, our food,” said Mike Maenza, president and CEO of the Big Easy’s Mr. Mudbug Inc. which catered the event for 700 diners.
“The seafood industry is a huge part of our livelihood. This shows that we’re still doing alright, and we’re going to get through this.”
For the event, Maenza trucked up more than three hundred pounds of produce to make his signature gumbos with fresh fish, jambalayas with andouille sausage and an étouffée, a Cajun stew of crawfish tail meat.
He said the crawfish — some of which were still alive and hopping around pre-boil — were not endangered by the oil spill because they come from the Atchafalaya basin, a swamp where the Atchafalaya river meets the Gulf of Mexico. His catfish were also unaffected because they are raised in farms in Mississippi.
But Maenza said he is currently digging into a depleting supply of frozen shrimp, with less of the fresh product readily available due to oil contaminating fishing waters.
The situation is even more dire for his regular catch of crab and oysters, because they cannot be frozen and are located in oil-affected areas.
Right now, oil continues to spill out from the blown-out BP well gushing into the Gulf.
According to BP’s Twitter feed, 6,077 barrels of oil were collected Friday alone, and several of the city’s seafood eateries have been forced to fork over premium prices for a diminishing supply of the fresh catch from the south.
Tulane grad Amanda Gould, who now lives in SoHo, was pleasantly surprised the fresh fish made it up from Louisiana.
“I miss the food from school all the time,” she said, getting ready to try the gumbo. “I’m surprised, but glad they managed to get the seafood here.”
Joseph Berg, 8, came to boil with his mom, Roni, a school alum, and tried his first ever bite of crawfish.
“It tastes like lobster,” he said, yanking on a claw. “I hope we can have more soon.”
