Amid Losses From a Spill, Chefs Fear for Oysters

PORT SULPHUR, La. — Paul Prudhomme, the chef who put Cajun cooking on the map three decades ago, was bobbing in a boat on Thursday on a slate-gray stretch of Barataria Bay. A cable’s throw away, Dickie Brennan, a restaurateur from one of New Orleans’s most famous restaurant families, floated on another boat.

They were part of a small flotilla of New Orleans chefs and restaurant owners who left their kitchens to see how one of their most precious ingredients, the Louisiana oyster, was faring in the face of the oil spill. The booms protecting the marsh grass, which were still white near the port, turned progressively darker shades of brown as the flotilla traveled farther into the bay.

The chefs looked on as Dave Cvitanovich wielded a giant pair of tongs and dug up about two dozen oysters from some of the 1,150 acres of oyster beds he leases, which have been closed because of the spill. In happier times, some of those oysters would be basted in butter and sprinkled with garlic, parsley and cheese and then be charbroiled at Drago’s, a restaurant owned by his cousin Tommy Cvitanovich, who was also in the flotilla.

“I hope I’m wrong, but we’ll probably come back in two weeks and they’ll be dead,” he said, wondering how long they can survive the coming tide of oil.

Mr. Prudhomme, whom even the other chefs simply called Chef, said that while his restaurant, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, was still able to get oysters from Texas, he worried about the fate of the much-loved local oyster.

“I think I can speak for everybody — we all love it,” he said, dressed in white and looking very much the way he does on the labels of his line of dry rubs and sauces. “Not to have it, or to see it destroyed, just would be a tragedy. I’ve been in Louisiana all my life, and my family’s been here since 1760. And we’ve always lived off the land — farmers and fishermen. It’s just sad to see what could happen here.”

Mr. Brennan said that the proximity of the oyster beds kept oysters affordable in Louisiana, not quite the luxury item they are elsewhere. “Everyone,” he said, “can buy an oyster po’ boy.”

Frank Brigtsen, who owns Brigtsen’s Restaurant and Charlie’s, could not believe how quiet the canal and the bay were. “There should have been 50 shrimp boats out there, there should have been oystermen working the reefs, there should have been sports fishermen out there catching speckled trout, but none of that was there,” he said.

The chefs were trying to strike a balance as delicate as a good gumbo: how to call attention to the plight of the Louisiana coast without scaring off patrons and tourists. Duke LoCicero, another chef, had an idea: why not try to persuade President Obama, a known foodie, to eat some local seafood when he visits the gulf on Friday, to show that it is safe?

“Call the guy at the White House,” Billy Nungesser, the president of Plaquemines Parish, told an aide after meeting with the chefs. “And tell them we’ve got three or four chefs who would like to prepare some Louisiana seafood for him.”