Shrimping in North Carolina
Written by Colette Harley
“We watched the hypnotic waves for hours as shrimp boats, barely visible in the mist, gilded as if in a dream, their outriggers extended like the slender arms of a ballerina dancing upon the waters. At first these forms merely occupied our peripheral vision, but gradually, these mysterious boats became a part of our dream place. Their distant presence endowed them with a romance that distracted us from the realities of erosion, storms, pollution and greedy land developers. Even at night, when the sky and ocean were black, the lights from these invisible boats suggested mysteries. We wondered what was going on in those small cabins of light miles away from shore”
– Richard Michael Kelly, The Carolina Watermen: Bug Hunters and Boat Builders
Visit most restaurants in America, and you will see shrimp on the menu: popcorn shrimp, shrimp cocktail, the head on shrimp over curry sauce I ate in Portland, Oregon that my tastebuds long to encounter again. I’ve eaten shrimp on Cape Cod, shrimp burgers on Oak Island and made spring rolls and shrimp tacos at my house in Chapel Hill. I first encountered a shrimp trawl at my friend’s parent’s beach house on Radio Island. The back part of the house faces the bay and Piver’s Island. Parked in the marina next to the subdevelopment is a giant shrimp boat, recognizable by its large nets and trawls. There is usually a gaggle of pelicans and seagulls hanging around the boat, waiting patiently for any scraps discarded by the fishermen. We watch the boat, mostly to watch the birds. In starting this project, I had a vague notion of the role of shrimping in the North Carolina coast, and as a relocated Yankee, brought a certain amount of predetermined ideas about shrimp and shrimp fishermen. I had expected to find a straightforward history of an ingredient that has always been popular and available during my time on this planet.
Shrimp is caught up and down North Carolina’s 320-mile-long coast, from Pamlico, Croatan and Roanoke sounds, all the way to Carolina Beach in the south. Each region has its own names for shrimp species caught in the area. White shrimp, for example, are known as green shrimp in Southport, North Carolina, while they may be referred to as Green-tailed shrimp in Pamlico Sound. (Broad, 1951, pg. 4) Despite the many names, there are three main types of shrimp caught, sold and eaten along the coast. Brown shrimp, white shrimp and pink shrimp are often fished in waters close to land, including river inlets. Most shrimping happens at night, and trawlers employ lights to coax the shrimp towards the surface. Shrimp harvests, which run from May to December, are often influenced by environmental factors including water salinity and winter ocean temperatures, which can impact the amount of shrimp spawned (North Carolina Environmental Quality, nd).
Shrimping as a practice was slow to come to North Carolina, partially due to a disinterest as shrimp as an ingredient. Throughout the course of my research, I found them described by white fishermen or their kin as “grub worms” or “bugs” (Peter Braasch, 1993-1994). In an oral history with a fisherman conducted by Durham native Peter Braasch in the 1990s, one participant remarked that “as late as the 1930s, ‘we didn’t know you could eat them’” (Braasch, 1993-1994). Later on, Braasch quotes from a Beaufort News article that “fisherman had never harvested in May because ‘nobody had ever looked for [shrimp] before.” (Braasch, 1993-1994). They were seen as pests that mucked up fishing nets. Often, folks would trade shrimp inland for staple goods, to farmers who would use the ground up crustaceans as fertilizer. (Pierce, 2015, pg. 6). Early shrimpers, so the story goes, may have been the Native Americans that populated the coast of Carolina, using hand weirs and nets to fish the river inlets and bays. (Pierce, 2015, pg.6) In Coastal Carolina Cooking, there are recipes for shrimp, but also for racoons, squirrel, bear, swan, chicken, pork and terrapin, which suggests the inhabitants of the coast in the 19th and 20th century relied heavily on the local wildlife for sustenance.
“When harvesting shrimp became a viable commercial activity in North Carolina in the early thirties, fishermen were paid three cents a pound. The women who headed the shrimp were paid a nickel a bucket for their work” (Maiolo, 2004, pg. ix).
The commercial shrimp market began to take off in the 1930s. With the invention of refrigerator railcars and canning, shrimp was now an export to inland and northern markets. Almost all the shrimp not eaten on the coast was sent north to the Fulton Fish Market in New York City, (Kelly, 1993, pg. 32). This continued throughout the late 20th century, with the introduction of flash freezing. Shrimp experienced a boom in the 1980s, and is now the most popular seafood choice for most consumers. Kelly, in his introduction to Carolina Watermen, notes that shrimp are not just “born out of the piles of ice seductively arranged in the seafood displays of Kroger and Food Lion stores,” but are a way of life for small commercial fishing outfits along the coast. (Kelly, 1993, pg. 4).
“Working in Willis’ Seafood Market, when I was 10 years old, Vesta Willis repeatedly explained to me that all the grouper, flounder, trout, mackerel, oysters, scallops, etc…that crowded their counter were merely dressing to attract tourists to purchase shrimp. Customers further impressed this upon me as the greater part of the few days I would spend in the fish market were spent filling bag after bag with shrimp.” – Peter Braasch (Braasch, 1993-1994)
The Sneads Ferry Shrimp festival is now in its 54th year. Combing Wilson’s collections, I stumbled upon pamphlets from the festival during the 1970s and 1980s. The 11th Annual Shrimp Festival booklet gives an overview of the origins of the festival: “A group of businessmen got together over coffee one morning in 1971 and decided it was time we shared our delicious shrimp with the outside world. The event would not be complete without a queen so a contest was held and a Shrimp Queen selected” (Snead’s Ferry Festival Committee, 1971). The booklets, which have a great deal of poetry and ads for local businesses, are surprisingly devoid of recipes and menus for the event. What is clear is that shrimping is a way of life for this community, and they take deep pride in both their shrimp and their shrimpers.
Tourism, particularly in the Outer Banks region, exploded in the mid-20th century. New bridge construction allowed for folks living inland to drive to the coast for the weekend. This trend continues to this day, with the transformation of the coast from small homes to “‘cottages’ with six to ten bedrooms built from the sound to the ocean, thrusting through the sand north of Corolla and any available space all the way down to Hatteras.” (Wiegland, 2008, pg. 18) As Wiegland notes, tourism, not fishing, is now the driving force behind the coast. Redevelopment of the coast threatens smaller shrimp outposts, many of whom can trace their lineage back several generations. Imported shrimp from India, Ecuador and Indonesia further impact this group’s way of life.
In 2021, researchers and Black seafood businesses partnered to spotlight Black fishermen and women and to highlight their roles and contributions to the craft. The project, titled “Recognizing African American Participation in the North Carolina Seafood History”, has led to an exhibit and a collection of oral histories with shrimpers, fishmongers, chefs and fishermen and women, in an attempt to help residents of North Carolina understand where their seafood comes from. In an oral history conducted with Nate Ellison, a twenty two year old shrimper in Merrimon, N.C., Ellison highlights the struggles of low shrimp prices, and long hours. When asked about how he manages with cheap imported shrimp and making ends meet, he says “Day to day. It’s the only way to put it. Day to day. If you don’t have a good week, you’re not making it…You’d have to catch 240 pounds of shrimp just to be able to pay for your fuel for one day” (Biro, 2024). Ellison’s father and uncle were caught fish, shrimp and crab, which is how Ellison got started. As with others in Wilson’s collections, shrimping is a family business.
In the cookbooks I found pertaining to coastal North Carolina, a number of them were produced by organizations, including home demonstration clubs, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Economic Resources and the State Department of Conservation and Extension Services. Recipes in these volumes are collected from folks in and around the coast (although some, including some that had recipes from people living outside the state). Recent cookbooks, such as Debbie Moose’s Carolina Catch include contemporary ingredients including avocados for shrimp avocado toast. Elizabeth Wiegland’s book, the Outerbanks Cookbook includes recipes for pancetta wrapped shrimp over grits, South of the border shrimp, and warm shrimp salad over goat cheese.
There was one recipe that came up again and again in these cookbooks, however. And that was recipes for shrimp salad, for which there are many variations:
I’ll leave you with some words from Seafood Cookery, published by the State Department of Conservation and Development and the Agricultural Extension Service, North Carolina State College, 1960.
"Your careful attention to the selection of ingredients and an uncompromising insistence on North Carolina seafood are the only requirements now necessary to produce smiles at the dinner table" (Thomas, 1960, pg. 3).
References
Biro, L. (2024). This young shrimper is carrying on Silver Dollar Road’s commerical fishing tradition. NC Catch. https://nccatch.org/blogs/232
Broad, C. (1951). The shrimps in North Carolina. Survey of Marine Fisheries of North Carolina. Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb6510855
Bug Hunting the Way to the New South, in the Peter Braasch Collection #20103, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Department (Hatteras, H. V. F., & Auxiliary, N. C.) L. (1964). From Hatteras kitchens. (North Carolina Collection). Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb5997557
Home Demonstration Clubs (Carteret County, N. C.). (1944). Seafood cookery from Carteret County kitchens (North Carolina Collection). Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2324712
Kelly, R., & Kelly, B. (1993). The Carolina watermen: Bug hunters and boat builders (North Carolina Collection). J.F. Blair; Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2473512
League, recipes compiled by L. W. M., & Sea, G. L. C. by the. (1995). Grace by the Sea good food cookbook. Book 3 (North Carolina Collection ). Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb8558479
Maiolo, J. R. (2004). Hard times and a nickel a bucket: Struggle and survival in North Carolina’s shrimp industry (North Carolina Collection). Chapel Hill Press; Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb4490017
Moose, D. (2018). Carolina catch: Cooking North Carolina fish and shellfish from mountains to coast (North Carolina Collection). The University of North Carolina Press; Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill.
N.C. Department of Natural and Economic Resources, Division of Commerce and Industry. (1973). Seafood luncheon. (North Carolina Collection). Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb7822395
Pierce, J. (Chef). (2015). Shrimp (North Carolina Collection). The University of North Carolina Press; Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb8230338
Shrimp | nc deq. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.deq.nc.gov/shrimp
Sneads Ferry Shrimp Festival Committee. (1981). Sneads ferry... Annual shrimp festival (Noth Carolina Collection; Vol. 11). Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb5621860
Thomas, F. B. (Frank B., Development, N. C. D. of C. and, & Service, N. C. A. E. (1960). Seafood cookery in north carolina. (North Carolina Collection). Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb5317110
Wiegand, E. (2013). Outer banks cookbook: Recipes & traditions from north carolina’’s barrier islands (North Carolina Collection; 2nd ed). Globe Pequot Press; Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill.
