Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hi everyone.

I'm Christina Jensen, and I'm Johnny Atkinson.

This week on Somersworth, we're highlighting some of Louisiana's iconic foods, from Easters to mushrooms.

Louisiana's diverse food scene is known around the world.

Let's start in Grand Isle, where a local delicacy is drawing attention from seafood lovers and chefs for their distinctive flavor.

Grand Isle Jewel are grown in suspended cages and are known for their balance of salty and sweet flavors.

I took a closer look at what's driving their popularity and why they're becoming a standout in Louisiana's seafood industry.

On the waters off Grand Isle aren't just a local delicacy, they're now a symbol of innovation and resilience.

The Louisiana seafood industry was dealt a devastating blow in 2010, when the BP oil spill left oyster beds in ruin.

For many, the future of the centuries old craft seemed uncertain.

But here in Grand Isle, innovation rooted in tradition carried the day, and Jules Melancon brought off bottom farming to these waters, a method suspending seed oysters in cages above the bay floor.

What once took five years now takes just ten months to see it firsthand.

We climbed aboard Kirk Carroll's boat at Bayside Oysters and set out across the bay, gliding past rows of floating cages that stretch across the water.

We're headed to the Grand Opera Commission's oyster lease are permitted.

Oyster area.

They started this up about four years ago with eight acres.

Kirk lifts each cage by hand, inspecting the oyster inside, suspended just below the water's surface.

They grow individually, untouched by the clusters and mud that shaped bottom grown.

Every is carefully nurtured to develop the perfect size and flavor.

What makes the off bottom, which is different, is that they're born in a lab and they're grown in Mother Nature, so they're grown individually.

So you don't have these clusters that wild or bottom oyster would have.

They're grown about 2 to 3in underneath the surface of the water.

From what we know, that's where all the good phytoplankton, dissolved oxygen and all the nutrients are out there.

Grand Isles oysters aren't just about quantity.

They're known for flavor.

Raised in off bottom cages above the bay, they develop a sweet, briny taste.

These oysters are sold under the umbrella brand Grand Isle Jewels.

Kirk is one of nine independent oyster farmers under that, created with support from the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission, Louisiana Sea Grant, and the Port Commission.

The umbrella brand is sort of a regional focus, so our job is to be able to say like, it's kind of like a Tennessee whiskey or a New York strip steak, where if you're getting a jewel from a restaurant, it's got to be an off bottom Grand Isle waster.

Through the research that we did, we discovered these oyster farmers doing this incredibly innovative work down in Grand Isle.

And we were like, we should be supporting this and try to find some way to amplify and elevate what they're doing here.

Since its launch in 2025, Grand Isle Jewels has grown rapidly, expanding aqua farm leases across local waters and supporting a new generation of farmers.

We're going to go from 13.5 acres to about 40 acres.

This is going to increase the number of plots that we'll be able to lease to additional fulmars.

The second thing we're getting ready to do, and this is the first of its kind here in the town of Grand Island.

We're getting ready to construct an oyster aquaculture workstation where our farmers can bring their Auster's to this workstation and sort and tumble there and bring them back to the farms.

Grand Isle jewels are now featured in restaurants across Louisiana, and thanks to a partnership with Inland Foods, one of the nation's largest specialty food distributors, these oysters are reaching new markets.

Inland is working to get the the Grand Isle Jewels into more restaurants, not just in Louisiana, not just in the Gulf South, but across the East Coast and the United States.

We really want people to know that this is like, these are the best.

They're the best oysters in the world.

That's what we like to say was generations of expertise, a spirit of innovation, and a brand that embodies the pride of the Gulf Grand Isle.

Farmers are turning their into true treasures, shining jewels of the Gulf.

They're a much higher quality.

They're a much higher tasting oysters insofar as more saltier.

And so they are the jewels of Grand Isle.

What we're thinking about Grand Isle jewels.

We really want people to know that these are like a treasure.

They're a gem, a Gulf gem.

We're just trying to offer him the best Icer out there.

You know, everybody thinks theirs is the best.

Of course we do too.

Brand Al Jewels isn't just a name.

It's a promise of quality, sustainability, and a new chapter for an industry that has weathered spills, storms and decades of uncertainty.

Sticking with seafood, crawfish have become one of the state's most sought after dishes.

Unlike traditional mud bugs, the freshly molten crawfish can be eaten whole, creating a unique texture and flavor that's helping fuel the demand.

I went to a crawfish farm to check out the work that it takes to bring them home to the plate.

It's springtime in Louisiana, and everyone's planning for those weekly crawfish boils with newspaper covered tables, messy fingers, and clothes to the sweet smell of boiling mud.

Bucks for crawfish are long standing tradition in Louisiana, but now some restaurants are serving more than just the tail.

Introducing the soft shell crawfish.

It's a rare Louisiana delicacy, only harvested when the crawfish molts his exoskeleton or basically climbed out of his shell.

Todd Edmunds is raising the soft shell crawfish for more than 40 years, and his new farm is an essay.

Louisiana.

That's how you get started with his soft shell crawfish.

Well, I guess I was in the construction business and I just got burned out on that.

So I started with, like 150 trading.

It evolved into selling.

But Ralph and Kaku, which was one of the biggest buyers, they were buying 20,000 dozen a year.

When the traditional crawfish is served, it can be quickly pulled apart, the tail of then peeled from the shell before it can be eaten.

But with a soft shell, each serving includes the unpeeled tail, the entire body, and even the crawfish head.

There's lots of rows of crawfish, but I see these over here.

The soft shell, they're kind of vibrant looking, and that's how I'm picking them out.

They won't pinch you because they're getting ready to lose their shell.

What do we do?

We take this top, pull off, and we pull it like that.

And this is nothing but me.

Fish naturally sheds the hard shell when the crawfish outgrows its own physical body.

This leaves a short window of time to seize.

That shell was body only about two hours.

If they shed up top, the other professional eat them.

So every day you have to pick them.

You miss them, you just.

You lose them on it.

Young, fast growing crawfish may lose their shell once a week, and the adult crawfish may molt every few months.

Workers at LTE soft shell crawfish are constantly monitoring many troughs searching for that one crawfish setting itself.

You have two guys coming in and working every day.

How many hours a day?

Ten hours a day.

Wow.

And that's seven days a week, I guess.

Seven days a week.

After the soft shell crawfish are picked up and gathered in separate storage, they are immediately kept cold to stop the new shell from going back.

Then they are individually cleaned and packaged in airtight containers, separated for size and labeled.

Well, there are lots of restaurants in Louisiana serving crawfish spread out over a table where you just eat the tails.

There are just a few restaurants that surf crawfish a different way.

Let's go eat.

Finding a restaurant that takes the time to serve this labor intensive delicacy can be hard.

But as to job, you must be willing to do.

We follow these crawfish from out in the swamps to the setting lamb, and now to Louisiana kitchens.

What do people think about softshell crawfish when they first hear about it?

Well, you have to be from Louisiana to actual ask for it, because a lot of other people, when they see it and ask for they and you try to explain what they are, actually they will make that face that, oh, I'm not going to eat that.

Alfred Colucci is the owner and chef of Louisiana Line, and explained that preparing and serving the soft shell crawfish is not so easy.

Well, how do you hook them?

We got them for 30 minutes to an hour on a buttermilk and Louisiana hot sauce.

After that, we did them in season flour.

Leave them back in buttermilk, back in a flower, and we dropped them in a fry.

Once the soft shell crawfish are coated, seasoned and fried, their most famously featured in a dish called the coca tree.

So they got the days.

They will get the crowns, they will get the golden brown color and they will taste one of them.

At the base is a fresh Filet-O-Fish, which is pan sauteed, topped with a soft shell and a rich source.

I ready to order, sir?

Yeah.

Do you have the cockatoo?

That's the fish fillet with the soft shell crawfish covered in hollandaise sauce.

Yes, sir.

Excellent choice.

The cocoa tree is a popular entree at the lanyard, using the soft shell as a primary topping.

It's a highly sought specialty when crawfish are in season.

I'm rolling up specialty.

The coquetry looks great.

Thank you.

What season?

Well, tastes like crawfish, but consistency of fried shrimp or fried catfish.

And it served over redfish, which is pan fried.

Absolutely delicious.

I give the soft shell crawfish two thumbs up or two claws up.

So, from picking up live crawfish in the marsh, the timing out, the shedding of the shell to the preparation at the restaurant, this is one meal I'll look forward to every crawfish season.

And if seafood isn't your thing, maybe you're a fan of mushrooms.

A husband and wife team in Saint Francis Field is getting a lot of attention for their fungi.

The specialty products have gotten the attention of chefs, and foodies are looking to take advantage of the unique flavors and the textures.

I'm taking you inside Mushroom Maggies to see how they cultivate their favorite fungi.

It's not your typical Louisiana farm.

There's no tractors, and they're not dependent on the Louisiana rain and the Louisiana sunshine.

So welcome to mushroom, Maggie's farm.

Maggie Long and husband Cyrus Lester are two prolific fungi producers in Louisiana, growing 8 to 15 varieties of mushrooms throughout the year.

We started just by researching farms in different crops that we could grow, and without having land, without having money, without having lots of stuff.

And then we came across mushrooms.

Unlike traditional Louisiana crops of sugar cane, soybeans or rice, mushrooms require minimal space to grow, making them a perfect fit for a family.

Small plot of land.

China is the world's leading producer of mushrooms, and in the United States, Pennsylvania grows roughly 66% of the country's supply.

And Louisiana.

There were only a few small farms growing mushrooms, so Maggie and Cyrus took that big step, creating an indoor mushroom farm in Louisiana.

How does it all start?

So basically what we do is we take hardwood sawdust from a local soil mill right down the road, and we mix it with soybean flake pellet.

The soil base is then sterilized before the colonizing begins.

So this is the colonization room?

That's correct.

So after the fruiting blocks leave the lab, we bring them in here to sit for between ten days to two months, depending on the variety.

Samples are then cut into wedges and put into a sterilized, hydrated grain, where it grows into fully shaped mushrooms with no waste.

We use agricultural by waste products.

So the waste from the sawmill like we go and we get and we grow our mushrooms on it.

And so we're trying to be sustainable and in the sense of getting sourcing stuff locally, but also really using every part at everything which we have.

Mushroom Maggies is now recognized as one of the biggest and most prominent mushroom farms in Louisiana, producing around 1,500 pounds of specialty mushrooms each week.

One day Maggie was like, sort of form with me and, well, we didn't have any money.

We're, you know, we're very poor.

We don't have any land.

And I was just like, what are we going to grow?

So you did some research and thought mushrooms was best thing for Louisiana?

Yeah.

Because nobody was doing it here and nobody in.

Nobody really knew about mushrooms.

We spent the first two years that we started selling, just educating people about mushrooms.

It was the second most profitable cash crop in the country, and we could grow it year round.

So the couple experimented with growing their own mushrooms and were ready to go to market when tragedy struck.

We had a faulty propane hose that kind of blew, and I was right next to it, a hole blue in it, and we had two five foot tall full propane tanks that the valves blue and the whole barn burnt down.

Like the week we were about to start selling mushroom, Maggie's first yield of fresh crops, along with a barn that they'd set up, were completely destroyed.

And it was super traumatic because we just spent a year, like all of our money, all working 40 hours a week at work and then coming here working 40, 50, 60 hours a week after work.

The couple wanted to give up, but friends, family and social media were filled with support.

So they rally, demoed the barn and started rebuilding.

It's actually a blessing in disguise because we didn't know what we were doing when we first set up the facility.

We Maggie and I have never worked on a form before.

We'd never grown mushrooms before.

We had zero experience.

The couple did some research and made improvements to their new facility, with climate controlled rooms and recycled equipment, including tables and dishwashing lines and custom welded shelves perfect for raising mushrooms.

The first time it had it not burned down, we would have had so much contamination issues that we might have not been able to, like, prosper.

What started as a simple hobby ten years ago has now mushroom into a massive farm, shipping out thousands of pounds of mushrooms each week.

So we have all these available at the Saturday Farmer's Market, and we usually just have a display out and then we'll have them bagged up, closed up, ready to go or we'll bag it for you.

Mushroom Maggie sells its product to some of the state's top restaurants and at farmer's markets, where they sell out almost every week.

The couple admits they didn't even like mushrooms at first, but now realized they can be used to make recipes not only tastier, but healthier.

It's just the quality of the mushrooms.

They look nice, they taste good.

They handled really well.

Everything's put together very nicely.

You can take lion's mane and you can put it in gumbo and change the whole dynamic of that thing.

I've come to love mushrooms.

Like I've even eat supreme pizzas now.

So Maggie and Cyrus have now spent the last decade turning that tragic fire into a successful Louisiana farm, selling the ever growing Maggie's mushrooms.

Earlier this year, Michelin turned its attention to the South, and Louisiana made the list.

Several restaurants earned Michelin recognition, putting the state's food scene in the spotlight.

I traveled to Saint Francis ville to see how one small town is making a big impression on the culinary world.

The Saint Francis villain has long been a destination for visitors seeking history, charm and southern hospitality.

And now, with the Michelin recommendation, it's attracting food lovers from across the country.

Behind me, an in bed stood for more than a century inside locally inspired dishes earning national attention.

Once inside, the charm goes beyond beauty, with a deep sense of history at every turn.

From dining rooms to sitting areas, historical details are woven throughout the space.

The story behind how this idea came to life is just as meaningful.

Why Saint Francis though?

You know, as a kid, I heard Saint Francis had beautiful homes and everything.

I literally was laying in bed one night on Zillow and just typed in Saint Francis, Phil, and this place was for sale.

And we drove here like two crazy people involved.

How does it feel to, like, have this crazy idea, but then now see it on this scale?

Yeah.

Well, my crazy deal was just like, have this, maybe have 2 or 3 staff.

Now we have like 55 staff.

It's a huge deal.

I mean, it's some days it's overwhelming.

Every room here tells a story from the artwork to the chandeliers dating back centuries.

Down the hallway, another story begins in the kitchen.

The magic happens here.

Under the guidance of executive chef Michael Darden.

He runs the same restaurant at the inn recently recognized by Michelin.

Super impressed.

Super happy for our team and the fact that it was the first year that the American South has been recognized by Michelin on an international stage.

It made me proud not just for us, but for our little town in the corner of South Louisiana.

And that nod for Michelin has turned heads and sent business soaring.

What's the reaction been from patrons in the community?

Tons of feedback.

I can't go to the grocery store anymore.

I get the locals are just constantly stopping me.

Want to talk?

Congratulate me, which is a lot of fun.

Probably the only negative is our locals are just complaining that they can't get a table so quickly.

The Michelin star is more than a trophy.

It draws visitors, supports local jobs, and shines a spotlight on the arts and culture of Saint Francis.

Ville.

From the vibrant downtown to this historic in the town is showing that culture can thrive in small towns, not just in galleries or theaters, but on the plate.

Talk to me about the significance of this end to the community.

This in well before we bought it.

This in always was the central focal point even before it was renovated to what it is today.

It was still the place where you took your girlfriend to get engaged to, still the place you went for special occasions.

We just took it, elevated it.

So when we bought the eight years ago, we completely gutted it and reinvented it and sent on a different direction.

In my opinion, it's still the towns in.

We're just the stewards while we're here, and as long as we're here, our goal is to is to elevate it and make it as nice as possible for the owners and executive chef Michael Darden.

The Michelin recognition is both an honor and a responsibility.

Each night, the kitchen becomes a stage where skill, creativity and tradition come together.

And for the town, it's a celebration of identity, history, hospitality and a culture that embraces excellence in all its forms.

Well, some of you may not have heard about the small town of Wisner, Louisiana, but the community takes great pride in its claim to fame.

Catfish, herring, catfish as the community's largest employer, and processes millions of pounds of catfish each year and ships it to restaurants across the state.

LA 64 is Karen LeBlanc takes us on a tour of the family run operation to learn more about how one man's vision led to the multigenerational institution.

I'll pass the long flag stretches of farmland in Franklin Parish.

There is a town that is tied its identity to a whiskered, bottom feeding food staple fish.

Wisner proudly proclaims itself the Catfish Capital and hosts a festival each year to celebrate the fish.

We'll call it South African Catfish Festival since we're taking the South Franklin, and this is really the home of catfish as well as the herrings, you know, right down the road.

Herring catfish processing plant on highway 562 is Whistler's largest employer and the third generation family owned business.

I visited for a behind the scenes tour of the plant that powers the local economy.

I expected a tour of machinery.

What I got was an appreciation for the humble frozen filet, and for the catfish farmers and workers behind it.

This is our unloading section where we are.

So is either 18 wheelers, our little bob trucks like this, these these Bob trucks do our farms that are around here.

We have around a thousand acres.

Catfish here in Franklin Pierce.

So we use these little bob trucks to get the fish locally.

By 1970, the herrings had opened their first processing plant.

It was a modest operation, handling 25,000 pounds a week.

In those days, Wisner still had a train.

And Hannah tells me her family would load all that fish onto railcars bound for Memphis.

When that first plant eventually closed, the family did not fold in 1995.

They bought the plant that I'm standing in from the government today.

Herring.

Catfish processes an average of 80 to 100,000 pounds of catfish a day.

So it goes in here to this injector and it injects, you know, in index, a lemon basket into it to make it have longer scale flight.

Everything that we freeze is frozen by size because it won't be graded by a scalar.

Anything has already been sized with our machines up here, and then it comes out and goes to this box.

The filets are frozen package and prepped for shipping boxes that proclaim born and raised in the USA.

Herring.

Catfish.

Certified.

Louisiana.

It's a point of pride in a market that competes with foreign imports stock.

It also this year is not going to be as good, but normally between 6 and 8 million pounds is what we should harvest off of our, you know, that thousand acres.

We head out to the catfish ponds for feeding time.

As a truck rolls along the water's edge, sending pellets flying across the surface, triggering a catfish feeding frenzy.

It takes about eight months for pond raised catfish to reach market size, and the cycle never stops.

We have 5000 acres of row crop.

We've got 1100 acres of catfish farms.

We got this big processing plant.

So, you know, we do a lot of different things to keep going.

We deliver our fish.

Texas, Oklahoma.

Alabama, Mississippi, just wherever really we a lot a lot of fish goes to California.

They come and pick it up and they take it to California for the Asian markets.

They buy a lot of fish.

Herring stocks its ponds with fingerlings year round, giving the community reason to celebrate the annual South Franklin Catfish Festival.

This festival brings in probably 5 to 8000 people a day just for the one day event.

And you know, we have 100 to 130 vendors that come in.

And it's just it's just to tell everybody, you know, even though we're a small town, you look around.

Things are done and things are, you know, vacant.

But we're still got the heart.

We still love our town.

We still want to build it back up.

Regenerations in.

And the herrings have built more than a business.

They've given Wisner its identity and its paychecks.

And even in a hard market, this little town still has the heart to keep its catfish legacy alive.

And you can check out our entire LA 64 episode about Franklin Parish at LPB four.

Here's a quick preview.

In this episode of LA 64, I hit the backroads of Franklin Parish in northeast Louisiana, where small towns have big claims to fame in Winnsboro.

Flags lined the streets of the Stars and Stripes capital, while nearby roads lead to the hometown of country music superstar Lainey Wilson.

We'll follow the Northeast Louisiana music trail.

Shop at one of the last general stores and experience arm life.

From dairy cows and pecan orchards to catfish ponds in the catfish capital.

Along the way, I meet people growing a new kind of agritourism rooted in tradition and full of heart.

Franklin Parish is located in northeastern Louisiana, in a region known as the Mississippi Delta.

The parish was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin.

Our road trip begins in Winnsboro, the parish seat.

Then we had north to swamp earth and on to Baskin, Gilbert Wisner, and we end in Crossville.

Let's get going.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB app.

And you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs that you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, X and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Christina Jensen and I'm Johnny Atkinson.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

For Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Mary Byrd Perkins Cancer Center.

Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.