Episode 102: Seafood Festival and Tomato Festival

Frenchman Joseph Bosarge founded Bayou La Batre in the 1780s. The area flourished as a resort destination until hurricanes in the early 1900s literally blew the business away. Today, the area's seafood industry generates $90 million for Alabama's economy, making it a natural location for a seafood festival.

The Blessing of the Fleet has taken place here since 1949, occurring in late April or early May. The Fleet Blessing and Seafood Festival draw an estimated 10,000 people. They dine on traditional seafood dishes as well as Vietnamese cuisine prepared by the local Asian community. Festivities include a gumbo cook-off, land and water parades, arts and crafts festival, and a crab race.

Two hundred miles east of Bayou La Batre is Slocomb, named for its founder, Frank Slocomb.

In the 1950s and 60s, Slocomb moved from a timber economy to growing picture perfect tomatoes in the rich, loamy soil common to the area. From more than 100 farms in its heyday, to only a dozen today, Slocomb still retains pride in its local crop. Instead of shipping green tomatoes all over the country as they once did, the tomatoes are picked ripe, sold locally, and used in the Slocomb Tomato Festival.

The first festival was held in 1979. It falls on the third Saturday in June, marking the first tomato harvest. However, a week of festivities lead up to that date, enticing 4,000 tomato fans to compete in tomato recipe contests, a Tomato Trot 5K Run, and a Tomato Gospel Sing.

Tomato Facts:

• The tomato is the most popular vegetable in the U.S., though botanists continue to classify it as a fruit.
• The tomato was originally classified a fruit to avoid taxation.
• Americans consume 12 million tons of tomatoes a year, equivalent to 766 pounds of tomatoes a second.
• Tomatoes originated in South America and were cultivated as early as 700 A.D.
• Europeans once thought tomatoes were poisonous because tomato acid mixed with
  lead in pewter plates and poisoned the food.
• Tomatoes and potatoes come from the same family.
  

Seafood Facts

• In 2001, U.S. consumers ate 1 billion pounds of shrimp. That's 3 million pounds a day, or more than 2,000 pounds a minute.
• 342 species of shrimp have commercial value.
• There are 4,400 varieties of crab.
• The horseshoe crab dates back 200 million years.
• The whale shark is the largest fish in the world, reaching 50 feet. The Philippine goby is the smallest at two centimeters.
• The wreath tossed in the water during the Blessing of the Fleet commemorates those who have lost their lives at sea.