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Bringing Home Beaufort

Your guide to America's coolest small town

3 Ways to Bring Home Amazing Beaufort Seafood

By Mark Leave a Comment

Just yesterday, the 2013 North Carolina Seafood Festival concluded across the water from Beaufort in Morehead City, North Carolina.

SoftshelllocalsNorth Carolina Soft Shell Crabs from Locals Seafood

A few weeks ago we wrote about 10 Ways to Bring Beaufort Home.

Number 2 on that list was one of the best ways we know to Bring a little Beaufort Home – eat great food no matter where you are. For any Beaufort lover, great food just has to include fresh North Carolina seafood. That’s just the kind of food that was celebrated during the seafood festival and the kind of food that is plentiful in Beaufort.

But…as we know, there’s always a but…

If you live any distance inland, you quickly realize how hard it is to get great North Carolina seafood.

So, how do you solve that problem?

How do you bring a little Beaufort home with fresh-from-the-water North Carolina seafood?

Here are three ways:

1. Pack a Cooler Full of Seafood Before you Leave Beaufort

This one’s a no brainer…simply stop by one of the seafood retailers in Carteret County before heading home.

In Beaufort, one of the best choices has to be Fishtowne Seafood at 100 Wellons Drive in Beaufort. The phone number is 252-728-6644, and they are generally open Monday through Saturday from 9:00am – 6:00pm. Fishtowne, and its owner Bill Rice, is famous for providing the freshest Carteret County Seafood.

On your next visit to Beaufort, be sure to bring along a cooler, stop by Fishtowne and stock up.

Other great Carteret County seafood markets close to Beaufort include Blue Ocean Market on Bridges Street in Morehead City and the Atlantic Beach Seafood Market on the causeway in Atlantic Beach.

Readers – feel free to let us know your favorites in the comments!

2. Support Inland Seafood Retailers Specializing in Fresh North Carolina Seafood

For us folks here in the middle of North Carolina, this always means a trip east to visit Locals Seafood, a company specializing in fresh North Carolina seafood selling in various locations around the triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill).

shrimp590Fresh Beaufort-area shrimp from Locals Seafood

We visited them just this weekend and had our own home-based North Carolina seafood festival. Read on for details…

3. Patronize a CSF – a Community Supported Fishery

What in the world is a community supported fishery?

Like community supported agriculture, community supported fishery organizations seek to connect local fishermen (in this case, North Carolina fishermen) directly to consumers in an effort to provide the consumer with the freshest seafood, the fishermen with a fair price and a decent living, and the oceans and seas with a thoughtfully executed and sustainable harvest.

As LocalCatch.org (a network of CSFs) says, CSFs seek to reconnect coastal communities to their food system, encourage sustainable fishing practices, and strengthen relationships between fishermen and communities.

What could be better?!

In North Carolina, CSFs tend to bring seafood inland, mostly to the triangle, but also as far as Boone. The two CSFs with intimate ties to Beaufort and Carteret County are Walking Fish and Core Sound Seafood.

Also according to LocalCatch.org, CSFs:

  • Establish a transparent chain-of-custody from boat to fork;
  • Increase access to premium, locally caught seafood;
  • Ensure fishers receive a fair price for their catch that reflects the value of their work;
  • Engage fishers and community members in more robust, viable, local food systems;
  • Provide a framework through which fishers and customers alike can creatively steward our marine resources.

If you’re in one of the areas they service, please don’t hesitate to patronize a CSF.

The Newsome Family Seafood Festival

We had a few family commitments that kept us in Alamance County (and away from Beaufort) this weekend. So to bring home a little Beaufort, we decided to have our own Newsome Family Seafood Festival.

Saturday morning, I made a trip east (about 40 miles) to the Chapel Hill Farmer’s Market to visit Locals Seafood.

sheepshead2590North Carolina Sheepshead from Locals Seafood

I arrived back in Burlington with a pound of shrimp from Beaufort, two live soft shell crabs and a sheepshead fillet. Now, I’ve never eaten sheepshead before, but last weekend at Front Street Grill at Stillwater’s Rhum Bar, Antonio – the world’s best bartender and an avid fisherman – told us that sheepshead tasted amazing, so considering that the diet of a sheepshead includes things like shrimp and crabs, I figured we’d give it a try.

It’s also a fish that you’ll never see in a grocery store or on a restaurant menu.

We had some backyard-end-of-the-season-home-grown-tomatoes on hand, so we thought we’d try some homemade cocktail sauce, too.

shrimpongrill590Shrimp on the Grill in Burlington

After cleaning the crabs, skewering the shrimp, cutting some lemons, and soaking some skewers, we lit the grill, popped open some beers, and began to channel some Beaufort. One of the great things about seafood on the grill is that it cooks quickly. In just a few minutes, we had our own family seafood festival.

sheepshead590Grilled Sheepshead

The sheepshead was outstanding.

It was dense but slightly flaky with a rich taste that went really well with just some melted butter, salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon. Sheepshead seem to be plentiful in North Carolina and it would be great to see the fish appear on some restaurant menus. Shrimp are always a hit, and the crabs were delicious.

cookedshrimp590Fresh off the Grill!

Fresh North Carolina seafood is one of the best ways to bring home a little Beaufort. It takes some effort, but it’s well worth the trouble. Pay attention to where your seafood comes from and demand LOCAL!

And remember to:

Relax…you can get to Beaufort from here (and if not, you can always bring home a little Beaufort of your own).

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Bringing Home Beaufort!

Bringing Home Beaufort is brought to you by Jennifer and Mark Newsome and their family. Owners of Southern Girl Travel, LLC, they are looking to help you relax, slow down, and enjoy leisure!

Subscribe and receive regular updates and a copy of our free ebook: Across Taylor’s Creek. Thanks!

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