Fishing has long been a dangerous and capricious industry, where luck – in harvests, weather, accidents – has almost as much to do with a captain’s success as his skill. The annual blessing, an old European tradition established in Bayou La Batre by a Catholic family of transplants from Louisiana, was a bulwark to ever-present risks. Shrimp boat captains would decorate their boats with festive flags and parade along the bayou, receiving a blessing from the Archbishop of Mobile, a little courage to go back out to sea.
But in 2023, while the blessing went on, there were no commercial boats to be seen.
For the Southern Foodways Alliance’s podcast Gravy,reporter Irina Zhorov travels to Bayou La Batre to speak with shrimpers: some of whom have lost interest or faith in the Blessing and others who see it as a vital tradition.
