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FRANKFORT, Ky. — September is the favorite month for lovers of Kentucky Proud freshwater prawn.
“This is the only time of year that they’re available fresh,” said Angela Caporelli, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s aquaculture coordinator and marketing specialist. “Please come out and enjoy locally-grown Kentucky Proud seafood and support local farmers.”
Joe and Sheila McCord will host a festival Saturday, Sept. 9, from 11:30 a.m.- 2 p.m. EDT at Avalon Farm in Winchester. The McCords will serve boiled, peel-and-eat freshwater prawn and fried tilapia, an African freshwater fish, grown in their ponds. Vendors of several other Kentucky-made products will be there, such as Winchester’s own Ale-8-One soda.
Nat Henton will host a festival Saturday evening, Sept. 23, at Wallace Station in Midway. It will feature freshwater prawn and other Kentucky products as well as music and local libations.
For a complete prawn harvest schedule, go to the KDA Web site at www.kyagr.com and select “Aquaculture” from the pull-down menu. Prawn recipes are also available on the Web site.
“Most of the growers have pond-side sales,” Caporelli said. “You can go to the farm and buy prawn fresh out of the ponds – fresh tastes better. Then there’s the whole ambience of going out to the farm, seeing how farmers raise the food you eat, and supporting them by buying their products.
“Prawn is such a unique product to Kentucky – it’s not tobacco; it’s not cattle,” she added.
Prawn is a shrimp-like native of Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region. Freshwater prawn are larger than average shrimp and have a texture similar to lobster, Caporelli said. She noted that freshwater prawn cooks much quicker because they’re not naturally preserved by saltwater, like their marine cousins.
For more information on Kentucky aquaculture, contact Caporelli at (502) 564-4983.
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