Twelve-year-old Brendan, the oldest of John Besh's four sons, hangs his eager hand over the side of the boat, toward a crab trap bobbing in the water. "C'mon!" Besh shouts to his son while tugging at the line. "Yank it up!" They heave the trap on deck as three additional pairs of hands—belonging to Jack, 6; Luke, 5; and Andrew, 3—help shake the cage free of crustaceans. Besh reminds his sons how to hold them: "Grab them at the joint, guys," he instructs as they shriek. "Hold 'em tight so they can't get you."
It's blue-crab season, and the guys are fixing themselves a crab boil.
Besh, who grew up in Louisiana with four sisters and an older brother, spent much of his own childhood fishing and hunting. His father was paralyzed in a car accident when Besh was 9, but his grandfather took him on outings all across the Gulf Coast, after which they'd return home to cook up their catch and eat dinner as a family. "How many meals these days do children enjoy around the dining table?" asks Besh, who recently competed in the Food Network's six-episode series The Next Iron Chef. "I'm guilty of it, too—I work nights. That's where Sundays with the family and the boys' fishing trips come in."
Bonding with his kids involves teaching them the origins of local foods as much as drinking in the warm air of the wetlands. "We're taking blue crab and speckled trout straight from the water, so they'll grow up with a knowledge of food at its source." Besh also devotes part of the weekend to passing down his culinary know-how (the former marine opened his first restaurant, August, in 2001, and won a James Beard Award in 2006). "My sons think I'm crazy," he says, laughing, "because I want them to learn how to make a roux and a gumbo."
In past years, the boys have spent these fishing weekends at a camp near their home in Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans. But the Besh camp was badly damaged during Hurricane Katrina, so this summer they're visiting a friend's camp, a rickety wooden structure in Grand Isle, a 100-mile drive south from the city.
Back on land, the kids help fill a large aluminum pot with a medley of spices for the crab boil. When it's time to eat, Brendan and Jack show the younger boys how to properly take apart the crabs. After dinner, everyone gathers to tell ghost stories—in these parts, swamp monsters are the protagonists, and wild boars, warns Besh, can attack at any moment. Then they climb into their bunk beds.
The next morning kicks off with a call to Besh's wife and the kids' mom, Jenifer (who admits she's enjoying her time off and "doing absolutely zero cooking" herself). It's followed by a limb-flailing four-kid pigpile on Dad. But at the first mention of fishing, the kids leap to their feet. Soon they're off again, this time to catch trout. They return, successful but ravenous, to inhale a classic New Orleans breakfast of homemade beignets (sugar-coated fried dough). Just as the powdered sugar begins to settle, the guys start assembling the fixings for lunchtime po'boy sandwiches—Jack dipping trout in buttermilk, Brendan finishing it off in a cornmeal mixture.
After lunch Luke, the shiest of the lot, comes alive at the sight of a football, which he tosses with his dad near the pier. "Out here the kids can just let their hair down," says Besh. "And if they learn how to make the perfect po'boy along the way, even better."
As the day ends, it's cleanup time. Raising a bucket, Besh asks, "Guys, what do we do with the fish heads?"
"Stuff them into the crab traps!" they yell. The weekend, and the food chain, have come full circle.
