Jeffrey Spoo
Maritime journalist and cookbook author Troy Gilbert first conceived of the idea to pay chefs to prepare meals for first responders during times of hardship in 2005, in the aftermath of Katrina. This was before the days of crowdsourcing platforms like GoFundMe, though, and local restaurants’ own hardships at the time made it difficult to realize the idea. Fifteen years later, though, when Covid-19 struck, he was finally able to put his concept into action: the resulting nonprofit, Chefs Brigade, raised $80,000, which allowed forty restaurants to feed first responders for forty-two days between mid-March and May 2020.
In June of that year, the city of New Orleans and FEMA requested proposals for a meal program that utilized independent restaurants. “Long story short, we obviously won that contract,” Gilbert said. The contract was supposed to last for one month—in that time, Chefs Brigade built a massive coalition of New Orleans restaurants and culinary institutions, including NOCHI (the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute), a local Waitr-style app called D'livery NOLA, and a company called Revolution Foods who agreed to finance the program.
Chefs Brigade’s FEMA meal program, originally supposed to last for one month, continued to feed individuals quarantined at home for an entire year. By its end in June of 2021, the program had given out 3.7 million meals, and Chefs Brigade had built up a massive network of chefs and restaurants as partners. “I had this big, well-established nonprofit that had accomplished incredible things already,” Gilbert said. “And so, I was sitting there like, ‘Well, what is our pivot? Moving past coronavirus, where does Chefs Brigade go next?’”
One of the new directions Chefs Brigade took post-Covid-19 was partnering with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL) on their oyster shell recycling program. Chefs Brigade covers the cost of shell pickup for the recycling program for their partner restaurants, and since May of 2021 have facilitated the collection of 39.2 tons of oyster shells, which will be used to reinforce the reef site belonging to the Pointe au Chien Native American Tribe.
The partnership also reinforced Gilbert’s connections from his maritime journalism days with conservation organizations such as CRCL and Pontchartrain Conservancy. “And we're just kicking around ideas for more ways that we can integrate the restaurants into the problems that are going on in on the coast and also with the perils facing the seafood industry here in Louisiana,” Gilbert recalled. “Because one of the things I did notice over the course of that year of working with so many restaurants is the enormous disconnect between the restaurant industry and the men and women in the seafood industry.” Gilbert was surprised to learn that there was no direct communication between oyster fishermen and women and the restaurants who are their customers.
The idea of taking chefs out to the coast to get on a boat and see sediment diversions first-hand arose over a dinner shared by Gilbert, CRCL Executive Director Kimberly Reyher, and Pontchartrain Conservancy Executive Director Kristi Trail.
“And we're just kicking around ideas, for more ways that we can integrate the restaurants into the problems that are going on on the coast and also with the perils facing the seafood industry here in Louisiana,” Gilbert recalled.
The next day, as Gilbert was walking to get coffee, he had the thought, “You know what, we shouldn't just take a couple of chefs. We need to take all of them.” And thus, Chefs on Boats was born.
So far, Chefs Brigade’s Chefs on Boats program has run thirteen trips, taking sixty-five chefs, oyster shuckers, line cooks, and restaurateurs out to Empire, Louisiana to see oyster leases and the environmental factors impacting them with their own eyes. “The oyster men, they’re all characters, as you might suspect,” Gilbert chuckled. “It’s pretty funny. They're like, ‘Wait, what do you want to do? You have a bunch of New Orleans chefs that want to come on board my boat? And listen to me tell my crazy stories? Come on!’ They love it.”
The experiences have been a lot of fun, according to Gilbert—but incredibly rewarding and beneficial, as well. “The conversations are really fascinating. Because for most of these restaurants, this is a brand new experience for them. Most people don't have access to boats. And they certainly haven't been on an oyster boat or shrimper’s boat. And having the chance to talk about the oyster industry and the shrimp industry. You know, what are the perils? What is the folklore? What is the whole picture?” Not only were the chefs eager to learn from the oystermen and shrimpers, but “we started noticing that the oystermen were just as curious, talking to the chefs, as the chefs were to them, because there's the huge disconnect.”
Jeffrey Spoo, an oyster shucker at Sidecar Patio & Oyster Bar who recently went out on a Chefs on Boats excursion, found the experience critical and informative—even more than he initially thought it would be. “Going out on the boat with Chefs Brigade and Captain Richie Blink was way more important than I was expecting,” Spoo said. “I have now experienced the whole journey of an oyster from being dredged out of the water, to returning its shell back into the same water through CRCL's shell recycling program. I was shown first-hand the hurdles these farmers have to overcome due to the climate and how the hurdles are only getting bigger and more frequent.”
In addition to better informing restaurant professionals about coastal issues, Gilbert points out that being better connected to where seafood comes from can be beneficial to restaurants from an economic and marketing perspective, too. “It boggles my mind why Louisiana oysters are marketed like, ‘These are from area seven,’ or ‘From area nine.’ I mean, doesn't that sound just so delicious?” Gilbert posed with a wry laugh. “If you went into a restaurant, and on the menu they had a dozen oysters raw from area seven, or for an extra two bucks, you can have a dozen oysters from the so-and-so family, who have been on this lease in Southeast Louisiana, farming out of Buras since 1842. They’ve got this built in branding.”
“Getting to know the farmers, production, and the environmental challenges they face will absolutely add some prestige to selling an oyster,” emphasized Spoo. “What comes from all this is gratitude and it will go a long way in keeping this oyster industry rolling into the future.”
