title: Cotton's Seafood: A Cajun Autobiographical Cookbook
author:  Jim LaBove 
description: Jim LaBove is an entrepreneur currently living and working in Beaumont, Texas. Most of his formative years were spent growing up in Sabine Pass, Texas where he worked for Cotton's Seafood, a local commercial fishing venture ran by his father, Lazime "Cotton" LaBove. During these years, Jim was enmeshed in a culture he refers to in his writing as "bayou Cajun," an oft-overlooked branch of the descendants of Acadian settlers who came to live in the coastal salt marshes of the Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana area. His published works seek to put a spotlight on these people, with the hope that they will play some small role in preserving this unique heritage.
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  _For Patricia and Macarthur_
  
  
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  ## **INTRODUCTION**
  
  
  This cookbook is not about farms, gardens, sustainable seafood, or how much
  cocaine I did before or after service every night. It’s about my memories of
  the food that I have eaten, cooked, and created. It’s about time and place,
  like those moments during my childhood family outings at the beach, where we
  would eat oysters, mussels, and clams harvested from the waters surrounding a
  beautiful red-clay island. It’s about how I looked up at Grampy shucking those
  oysters with his rusty pocketknife, then boiling and serving up the mussels
  and clams in his garage for me, my brothers, and my sister. This is a cookbook
  about these experiences. I will show you th