A Blend of Flavor, Community and Nostalgia
PHOTOS BY ERIK PEREZ AND ELIAS TAMEZ
About 100 guests, coming from different parts of the Rio Grande Valley and beyond, enjoyed Edible Rio Grande Valley’s first Gulf-to-Table Dinner on the evening of May 10. The weather was a harmonious mix of our iconic South Texas sunshine and a cooling breeze, creating a particularly magical atmosphere at the Port of Brownsville’s Shrimp Basin.
As guests arrived, the basin became a sea of colorful, flowy dresses and nifty oceanic-themed accessories, with plenty of lively conversation and echoing laughter. The melodious sounds of community connection mimicked the sounds of the waves as they crashed into the docks. Guests had the opportunity to take tours of the docks at Texas Gold Shrimp, led by third generation shrimper Chris Londrie, whose family owns and operates the company. We were thrilled to have our dinner on their property and witness how new life was brought into such a historically significant area. The Port of Brownsville owns the basin. Texas Gold Shrimp and Zimco Marine LLC manage the portion of it where this dinner was held.
Our goal with our dinner series is to build a valley-wide food community that eats and celebrates local.
From the docks, guests made their way to our signature communal dining tables, to make new friends and connect with old. The food portion of the evening began with a Gulf oyster tasting led by The Seafood Dude Daniel Wangler, and Jacob Aparicio, co-owner of Oyster Bros in Palacios. The two farmers use East Coast techniques to produce top-of-the-line gold oysters. They even converted this magazine’s owner and publisher Jacqueline Folacci, who said she would never eat raw Gulf oysters, and now asks for local Gulf oysters when she goes out to eat. Advocating for local ingredients is the way we tell local chefs what we want and keep our dollars within our community.
Using the locally caught Gulf shrimp and other local harvests from Los Tortugo’s Seafood Market and Joe’s Oyster Bar, both in Port Isabel, chef Nadia Casaperalta, in partnership with chef Daniela Tesoros from Tesoro’s Cuisine, created a mouth-watering, five-course dinner that captured the region’s bold flavors.
As we moved through the menu, from the low tide tiradito of red snapper to the high tide tostada of red drum, we were reminded of our sweet, sweet memories of being near the Gulf of Mexico. As we were only a few feet away from the boats that caught plenty of the bounty being consumed that evening, the dinner really captured how lucky we are to have these magnificent flavors and talented chefs so close to home. The chefs blended together “everything that is delicious,” combining seafood icons, like sea urchin and red snapper, with familiar flavors, such as salsa macha and local citrus, to invoke a memory and instill a sense of nostalgia in each of our guests.
One guest, Sofia Hernandez, shared, “Food speaks. It has its own language. You can have all of these fancy experiences all over the world, but you don’t have to go so far when you have all of this right in your backyard.” The inaugural Gulf-to-Table Dinner helped showcase the RGV’s special treasures, bringing guests to the very heart of where their food is sourced. The dinner served as an homage to the RGV’s food culture and rich history, while carefully capturing the essence of our precious Gulf.
“Food speaks. It has its own language. You can have all of these fancy experiences all over the world, but you don’t have to go so far when you have all of this right in your backyard.” — Sofia Hernandez
Beyond the menu, chef Casaperalta strongly believes in our responsibility to connect with the food around us, working to understand its historical ties and cultural roots. She feels that in sourcing from our own backyard, we must also “understand how privileged we are to have such a cultural pride point that is the Isla.”
Supporting local farmers, chefs and other food-industry professionals helps bring exposure to the unique components that the RGV has to offer. ERGV’s Folacci shared the importance of supporting local. “Make sure each dollar [you spend] stays here, so that we expand our local food economy.” Along with improving the economic health of our region, “eating local is great for the environment, too,” noted Wangler.
As we continue to share more local highlights and host more of these table dinners, the ERGV team would like to thank each and every one of our attendees, along with the local farmers, food and drink artisans, caterers, decorators and waitstaff who helped shape the remarkable sunset dinner. We hope the friendships you made and the flavors you discovered stayed with you way past the sunset that so beautifully reflected off the water.
If you were unable to join us this time or want to be one of the first to know of our next dinner, make sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter to keep up with everything Edible Rio Grande Valley. Go to www.ediblergv.com to sign up.”
