[Walter] Welcome to Port Aransas on the stunning Texas Gulf Coast, where history and flavor collide And while the Atlanti and Pacific oceans lie hundreds of miles away from Texas, it can still be a haven for beachside fun and activities.

From sandcastle festival to lively seafood competitions, this coastal town knows how to blend history, culture and good times.

So get ready for sunshine, deliciousness and a Texas-sized adventure all for A Taste of History!

[Narrator] A Taste of History is made possible by [Three Little Birds b Bob Marley & The Wailers plays] ♪ Rise up this morning ♪ ♪ smiled with the rising sun ♪ ♪ three little birds ♪ [Narrator] The Caribbean all inclusive Sandals Resorts.

More information can be found at sandals.com.

Additional funding provided by Crow Vineyard and Winery on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Sip.

Stay.

Savor.

[electric guitar strums] [ocean waves crash] [Walter] Pete, What a pleasure to be with you again.

-Well, welcome to Texas, chef.

-It's our third episode together Texas has such a - many different variety of great areas.

Look at down here it's like paradise.

-I pretty much grew up in Port Aransas, so this area is dear to my heart.

The beaches are amazing.

Fishing down here is some of the best on the whole Gulf Coast.

[seagulls call] I'm going to do some stuff that's pretty regional.

Redfish on the half shell.

I'm going to be doin a grilled shrimp in a skillet.

We're going to do some flounder fillet stuff with fresh jumbo lump crab meat.

You can't get any fresher than this.

None of this is over 24 hours old.

-That's what I love about this area.

The seafood never sees a freezer.

-It's fresh, it's fresh.

-Isn't it fantastic?

[Pete] All right.

We're going to start wit really getting some butter going that's like the number one thing on this dish.

Get some butter going to start to get melted [Walter] Just a little butter.

-Yeah.

We don't need a whole lot of butter.

[Walter laughs] [Pete] We got some garlic, got paprika, we got some cayenne pepper, parsley and some salt.

-Alright, perfect!

-And add shrimp.

These are Texas gulf shrimp.

I peeled them, Deveined them, tail on.

They're caught here local.

And they're just sweet.

-Look at the flavor already.

-I'm going to throw it in that pit.

You want to open that for me?

-Sure.

Here we go.

All right.

-Put this bread in there.

Kind of get it warm.

That's probably one of the most important parts.

That's it.

That's all there is to it.

-It'll be about five minutes.

-Right.

[rock music] [Walter] Shrimp get measured by, what they say, 'under' how many in a pound, so basically if you say U/20, it means there is at least 20 in the pound.

But you can go all the way down to U/5, which means there's five giant shrimp in the pound.

This is how shrimp usually gets sold.

-But sometimes, sometimes they sell U/12 without heads, and sometimes they sell U/12 with heads.

-So you gotta be careful.

-You have to watch that.

-It's a litte tricky.

Oh my gosh.

-Pretty!

-Look at that -There you go.

-Here we go.

-See, it doesn't take that long to do the shrimp.

-And perfectly cooked, I may add Look at that.

Lemon over it adds a certain acidity into it.

And it's just like- oh man.

Look- look how good they are.

Let me try that.

-It's pretty good bread, too.

-Let me tell you, the beauty of this entire thing is it's the simplicity and the wholesomeness and the freshness.

And that's what I really like about your cooking style.

You look at it.

-And it didn't take what, 3 or 4 minutes?

-Million dollar shot It don't get better than that.

[light spanish guitar strums] [crickets] [Narrator] In the early 16th century, as wealth, power and fame captivated Spanish explorers, their sights turned away from the Caribbean colonies and towards the vast unknown of the American mainland.

One such explorer was Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, who set sail from Jamaica in 1519 with a mission to navigate the treacherous waters around Florida.

However, strong winds forced Pineda's fleet of four ships to change course and sail west into uncharted waters.

This accidental expedition not only marked the inaugural European presence in the area, but also laid the groundwork for the first ever map of the Gulf Coast line.

As Pineda ventured forth, he meticulously recorded the intricate details of rivers and inlets along his path, providing future generations with invaluable insights into the region.

[music] [Cliff] The Texas coastline is dotted with barrier islands that were forme at the end of the last ice age, and those barrier islands really kind of minimize how many openings there are into the bays and those that are navigable are even less.

We have a very large opening here that is natural, and that's the Aransas Pass.

The next natural pass is 110 miles as the crow flies.

[Narrator] Over the years, the Aransas Pass became a focal point for maritime activities, offering a gateway for trade, transportation, and the growth of coastal communities.

But it also posed challenges.

[Cliff] So the Pass was migrating southward.

The deep water was carving off chunks of Mustang Island at a rate of up to 250ft a year.

[Narrator] Various attempts were made to control and stabilize the Aransas Pass, including the construction of jetties and walls.

The arduous task of taming this powerful waterway fell to dedicated individuals and engineering marvels.

[Cliff] It took about five different attempts at building a set of jetties t capture the Pass in one place.

The final jetty was designe by the Army Corps of Engineers.

They built a railroad and ran it all the way out into the water to bring out the rock.

They settled on really super dense rocks of pink granite.

Guys like MacBride that lived right across the street, he would spend pretty much 14 hours a day lifting rocks out of a boxca and dumping them straight over, and they were working right over the water.

So, a pretty, pretty tough job.

[seagulls calling] [waves crashing] [Narrator] Through perseverance and determination, the Aransas Pas gradually became more navigable, providing a lifeline for the local community and enabling the growth of industries such as fishing and commerce.

Today, it continues to serve as a vital link connecting the rich resources of the Texas Gulf Coast to the world.

[Mayor] Well, chef, I want to welcome you so much to the city of Port Aransas.

We are honored to have you here to our beautiful island, our beach paradise.

-How does it feel to work and live in paradise?

-It's amazing.

Every day is a dream come true for me.

-Because I'll tell you something.

I've been here a very short time.

But I have fallen in love with this place.

This morning, taking the ferry over.

What an experience it was.

You know, it's just like- it's so unique and different.

-Yeah, and the ferry is one of our unique experiences that's wonderful.

-It certainly is.

-But we have the beach, we have fishing, we have ecotourism.

-And the other thing is your beach doesn't run out!

I was driving it today.

It's like - gosh!

It never stops!

-Never stops.

-And, you know, I'm a chef.

-Yes.

-So you tell me, what is your view on the culinary scene?

-So we have some amazing seafood restaurants, but we also have them incorporating some stuf that's truly South Texas unique, some places that have a lot of Mexican influence because we're so close to Mexico.

Again, have that kind of coastal flair, which is awesome.

-To me, I find it unbelievable how fast you recuperated after this horrendous, horrendous hurricane that hit you over here.

How did you manage it?

-Because everybody wanted Port Aransas to be back.

And it took a community, a village.

But really everyone surrounding our community, the whole state chipped in because Port Aransas this is their paradise.

And so we had so many people from afar that came to really piece things back together and it made a huge difference.

I think Port Aransas is going to be a great place for many years to come, and I hope that you enjoy your stay here and really enjoy your time and get to know it.

[music] [sizzling] [Tommy] Jay's Seafood and Spaghetti Works has been here for 46 years now.

It's been a staple on the island of Port Aransas since its inception.

We're one of the few places here where you can actually catch the fish that day, and we'll cook your catch that you brought in.

Everything's made to order from scratch.

[Nick] Welcome, chef to Seafood and Spaghetti Works.

-I'm so excited.

I'm in your domain and my domain.

[laughs] -Thank you for coming and giving us your time.

This is actually a dish that an old chef made.

His name was Joe and it's called Joe's Fish.

Served with, fresh mahi.

Butter.

-He was still swimming this morning.

-Yes, sir.

And then, salt and pepper, 4 to 5 minutes.

Don't want to overcook it, or it gets real tough.

-And now he's making the sauce.

-Put our butter in, our garlic, shrimp, we're also going to put our asparagus and chopped bacon.

-Beautiful -All we're going to do now is we're going to do a little turn.

We're going to get the marks on the fish.

And again butter.

-That's the flavor right there -That's the flavor, yea.

And it keeps it moist.

[sizzling] -Oh yeah.

Obviously he's done that a few times.

Look at that.

Couldn't get better than that.

[Nick chuckles] [Nick] Now that our shrimp are about halfway done or done, take it away from the flame.

Add your white wine.

Add your clam juice.

With fresh basil.

-Oh, yeah.

-Blue cheese crumbles.

-Now you let that reduce down?

-Yea, we reduce this down just a- just a smidge.

Add some pepper, little bit of salt.

Now we're going to add in heavy cream.

-There you go.

-This is going to reduce by a half or a little bit less.

Yep.

That should be almost done.

-It's a great dish.

That's why I liked it when I read it.

-It's very savory.

It's totally a wholesome dish.

It's got a- it's got a lot of comfor food elements in it, you know.

You can taste it.

Now, when we add the parmesan you'll see a little difference.

A little parmesan cheese.

-Oh oh oh!

-It's bueno.

[Nick laughs] -Well, you know what makes the difference here.

The white wine, a nice dry white wine, and the clam juice.

-Yea.

-It's perfect.

He's using angel hair pasta.

Oh, that's really good.

-Yeah.

-Ohh!

[Nick] Finish with some chopped dry or fresh parsley.

-Perfect.

-That's a Joe's Fish.

Mahi mahi.

Shrimp and bacon and blue cheese.

-So, chef, what a spectacular looking dish, but you're not going to see it again.

[laughs] It's gonna go outside with me!

-Thank you chef.

I hope you enjoy.

I finally get to taste.

This is the specialty of the house.

Mahi mahi is very popular in the entire Gulf because it's a game fish.

It gives you a good hunt and it gives you a thrill.

And therefore it's very popular.

But they're also very tasty.

Let me see here.

Oh, wow.

But I wouldn't expect any different.

Naturally the bacon, together with the butter and the shrimp and the white wine and the clam juice makes it a very unique dish.

It's beautiful.

Perfect in my mind.

[guitar strums] Let's visit with a local legend to learn more about fishing in these Gulf waters.

[Fish Vendor] Seven!

[Fisherman] That is mine!

[Dee Wallace] Families, friend and people that aren't friends come together and become friends over fishing.

I'm Captain Dee Wallace, I'm a yacht broker here in Por Aransas, and I also put on fishing tournaments.

Every fish has a story, you know, the guys that catch their first fish.

It's a great story.

And the guys that catc a big fish, it's a great story.

And the one that got away are some of the best stories.

I spent very large part of my life traveling around the world chasing world record fish.

We fished in 37 different countries to places where there were no facilities, no motels, no charter boat, no marinas, just to totally be self-supporting.

I lived on boat more time than I lived on land in my total life.

And the main reason I came back is just the individualness of this community.

There's just- there's not another place like this in the world, and I've been to all the best places.

All you need is a cane pole and line and bait and you can catch fish here.

Lots of fish caught in the surf.

Just people having a cold beer with a line out catching all kinds of stuff.

I don't know of any plac that has shallow water fishing that equals what we have.

How many days a year you can fish and how many fish you can catch in that time.

Redfish, speckled trout black drum, sheephead, flounder.

Right no there's king mackerel, big ones, 30 to 50 pounds biting right at the end of the Pass And then the deep rigs are about 100 to 125 miles offshore.

And that's where there' lots of the big pelagic species bluefin tuna, blu marlin, white marlin, sailfish.

It's a way of life for lots and lots of people in Port Aransas and along the coast.

To experienc the excitement of catching fish is what it's all about.

[rock music] [Pete] Chef what we're going to be doing today is a stuffed flounder.

These flounder were gigged last night.

-It's a big hobby down here, no?

-Oh yeah!

My son actually went out with some friends last night and gigged these.

It's a lot of fun.

They got home at 2:30 in the morning.

That's a young man's sport.

That's why I didn't go.

-Why you call it 'gigged?'

-Well, they use spears.

They use spears and they're i front of a big lighted airboat.

They go out at night and they look for 'em.

They'll see 'em and they'll spear 'em.

And this has been going on for thousands of years.

This is a real popular way of harvesting flounder.

So you'll see a lot of airboats running around here with lights on the front.

Most of them are all commercial fishermen, and they're supplying your seafood markets and restaurants and things like that.

We're going to stuf those with jumbo lump crab meat, which came out of some crabs that we caught here in the canal here behind us.

-Fantastic!

-And, this a blue crab.

A lot of the jumbo lump crab comes from this, this area right here.

So that's where the bi chunks of meat, which are these.

So they're really delicious.

And these are fresh.

These were caught today.

-Ya know, flounder is very good for you.

A lot of vitamins.

And it also barely has no fat.

That's the other beauty of it, you know?

It's popular everywhere.

-Oh yeah.

-I used to have it in m restaurant stuffed with spinach and it was one of th biggest selling item, you know.

[Pete] Well, the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to create a little pocket.

So you get a little knife that you can control.

It's got to be sharp and get down there.

And when you fingers, you ca kind of feel where you're going.

And since Walter filleted this there's no bones in this one.

[Walter laughs] [Walter] Obviously [Pete] That's just a place to put the stuffing in there.

I've got some cracker crumbs.

I've got some mayonnaise.

Have a little bit of salt, red pepper- sautee a little bit, some green onions and the bread crumbs and the mayonnaise acts like a binder to kind of keep it tight.

Now I'm going to break this big beautiful lump crab meat up a little bit.

-There you go.

Boy, I'll tell you what this is going to be some serious good eating.

[music] -So we want to kind of squeez that back in there a little bit.

We're going to take this.

We've got a seasoned flour, got salt and pepper.

Very simple.

We don't want to overseason a really good fish.

I'm going to take these.

Just lay them in a pan.

That's beautiful [sizzling] I'm going to saute these a little bit on one side.

Flip it over.

Throw it in the pit, let it kind of finish off while I make my white butter sauce.

They're beautiful.

If you're at home doing this you can throw it in an oven at about 350 for not more than five ten minutes and finish it up.

That's the star of the dish.

This just kind of goes along with it.

Mushroom rice.

It's a side dish to our crab.

What I'm going to do right now is a white butter sauce.

It's kind of a beurre blanc, but this one has heavy cream with it.

Put some garlic.

White wine.

[sizzling] And I put a little bi of lime right now at this time.

So you got the acid and th garlic and aromatics in there.

I want to cook that 'au sec' which in English is 'cook it dry' and in German it's what?

-Trocken!

-Whatever he said that's what it is.

[laughs] And basically what you- what you want to do you want to reduce it like you said, au sec, or trocken, or dry.

-Because if you keep it real liquidy like that it's going to just be a liquidy mess.

Yeah, you're trying to get a real thick sauce.

-Heavy cream?

-Almost, almost.

What's 'horse' in German?

-Pferd.

-Pferd?

-Yea.

-Hold your Pferd!

[laughs] That's what we say here in Texas.

[Walter laughs] [Walter] I'm gonna charge you extra for language courses over here.

[Pete laughs] [Pete] I'm going to charge you extra for cooking classes.

-I do know that!

-Ha!

Okay, add it.

Now this we're going to just cook it cook it cook it until we get super super super thick.

[pot scrapes and clanks] [Walter] Here we go.

Look at that!

-Okay, great!

-Piece of art.

-Why don't we go ahead an plate that rice on this surface.

-Yea, just a little bit underneath, yeah.

-Yeah.

[sizzling] [music] [Pete] Put a little bit of green onions just on top.

-Yeah, for a little color.

There we go.

So what's unique about this dish and I really like you got this beautiful flounder stuffed with is unbelievable lump crab meat in there.

Not too overseasoned.

And, you have you spectacular "Mims-buerre blanc" [Walter laughs] I mean, give me a break.

It's beautiful.

This would be perfect served in any restaurant.

-I think I'm going to put that in my restaurant.

-I think you should [laughs] [guitar strums[ [Cliff] Throughout history, the soul of the town has always been a fishing village.

We were The place in the U.S. to catch a tarpon, and we were called Tarpon, Texas, from the late 1890s all the way until 1910.

[Dee] The tarpon used to be here by the thousands.

They are makin a slight comeback now in August and September.

It's the largest fish in the herring family, and they're silver and they're pretty, they're strong and they jump a lot when you catch them, and their gills just chatter.

It makes a lot of noise when they jump up shaking their head.

They can be 150 pounds jumping ten feet out of the water right by your boat.

It's just very exciting fish.

And you turn them loose.

There's no reason to kill them.

They're full of bones, they're no good to eat.

-If you wanted to catch a tarpon if that was your bucket lis item, you came here to do that.

And of course, in 1937, FDR also came to do the same.

[film reels flickering] [1930s TV Announcer] It's not every day you can see the president of the United States land a big fish.

It's not every day he catches one, even on a fishing trip to the Gulf, but that great 80 pound tarpon they're landing is enough to make any anglers heart glad, and his cup of joy run over.

[Cliff] When the Farley brothers came in 1950 and started building boats, they didn't just build a fishing boat, they built boats specifically for catching tarpon.

We think the first production sport fishing boat that was powered.

They were low to the water and they made it easy to pull the fish onboard.

So when the Farley brother started building boats in 1915 that were powered, you know, that really became a big boom to the area.

[rock music] [seagulls calling] [waves crashing] [Walter] Port Aransas is not only known for its pristine beaches, but also its captivating sand sculptures.

So I had to check out the artistic wonders and intricate creations that makes Port Aransas a renowned destination for sand sculpture lovers across the globe.

[surfer guitar music] -My name is Mark Landru and I'm a sand sculptor.

People here on the island called me the sandcastle guy.

We're pretty much sandcastle crazy here.

I've been sand sculpting for 24 years now.

I was out here every day afte I took my lesson trying stuff.

Before I knew it, I had another business.

The Sand Fest is the largest in the country we have here.

We bring people from all over the world to sand sculpt, and it's a big draw because o the beautiful sand sculptures.

So everybody wants to come ou and compete against each other.

And we raise a lot of money for nonprofits and high school scholarships.

The sand on this beac is one of the best in the world.

It's a flat, fine grained sand with anywhere from 8 to 55% clay content and that's the best for stacking.

We can stack our sand higher, with a narrower base, than you can anywhere else in the country.

We can go really tall with these pancakes.

It's having that sand, that flat, fine grained sand, getting that water to come up and watching it go down.

If you wanted to make a brick wall.

Cut them off like this.

And you transfer them up like that.

It's the water is what's holding that together.

It's a matter of getting that water to wrap around the sand, bring it up, and then relax your hands, let it go down.

You're letting the wate do the work for you, basically It's a blessing to me to live here.

You know, with this sand.

I'm kind of addicted to this, and Port Aransas is just the best place to get stuck in the sand at.

[laughs] [surfer rock music ends] [electric guitar music] Alright chef, what we're doing right here, it's the last meal of the night.

We're going to do a redfish on the half shell.

I know you've been waiting for this dish.

This dish is a really popular way to do redfish down here.

They've got a very, very tough outside skin with scales.

So when you fillet these, you leave the scales and skin on.

It's like armor.

-I mean, it doesn't get more beautiful than that The sun is setting down.

We're cooking Tex-Mex from the master.

I've never seen it before.

Shows you you never get too old to learn.

[laughs] -Well, it's kind of a Tex-Mex-Cajun a little bit.

My son caught these this mornin and caught these on a fly rod.

He has a poling skiff.

That's a really cool way to catch them using flies that he actually ties.

So it's pretty cool.

A traditional way to do it, everybody does here, they use an Italian dressing and they buy a Cajun seasoning to put on it.

We'll kind of do our own deal.

Use some oil.

I've got some garlic powder, some cumin, some paprika, some cayenne pepper, red chili flakes, pepper and some salt and some oregano right here.

My own little Cajun seasoning.

The way to do this, you just throw it straight on the grill, you just let it go by itself.

And when it's ready it'll be charred on the backside.

Pull it off.

Ready to eat.

[rock music] [Walter] Check on the fish quick here.

[sizzling] Oh, yeah!

[knock knock knock] Oh!

-Listen to that.

-Yep.

[knock knock knock] [Walter] That's what I find so unique about it, this dish, because you don't need a plate.

Right there.

-Yeah.

-Now, if I would have done something like this in my old days in Europe, I would have been fired because they would say, what, 'You're cooking a fish with the scales on it?'

'What's wrong with you?'

-Well, if you think about they've probably been cooking like this for generations, Get a fire going and throw it right on top of the coals!

-And they're ready.

-Yeah, it's pretty much ready.

-Yep.

-And we're going to kind of do a little fusion to it.

We're going to serve over it over some red bean and rice.

We got some chorizo in there too.

South Texas made chorizo.

-So for now you can put your pico de gallo on top.

-Yea, that kind of turns it back into a South Texas dish.

-Oh gosh!

- A little spice to it.

-Isn't it beautiful?

-You can also serve this with just a good lemo butter sauce over the top too.

-Put the cilantro maybe right in the middle.

What to think about that?

My little touch Doctor.

Pete Mims.

The Man!

It was a hell of a day.

We cooking here, I don't know, it's 100 degrees or more.

-Pretty hot today.

-But we also delivered some spectacular cuisine.

Every dish we made today has a lot of love.

You almost get emotional when you see this beautiful food, you know?

-Thank you, thank you.

-From the Gulf, on the grill, presented beautifully.

I mean look at that.

-Yep.

-It doesn't get better than that.

It doesn't.

Doesn't, doesn't!

Chef, you know what, you're a really tough critic so I'm glad you like it.

But you know what?

It's hot I'm ready to go get a margarita at the wharf.

Let's go.

-Well we need to hav a margarita.

We are celebrating.

[Walter laughs] And all this for A Taste of History!

[Narrator] A Taste of History is made possible by [Three Little Birds b Bob Marley & The Wailers plays] ♪ Rise up this morning ♪ ♪ smiled with the rising sun ♪ ♪ three little birds ♪ [Narrator] The Caribbean all inclusive Sandals Resorts.

More information can be found at sandals.com.

Additional funding provided by Crow Vineyard and Winery on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Sip.

Stay.

Savor.

Viewers can find DVDs and cookbooks at atasteofhistory.org, including the all new A Taste of History Cookbook, complete with step by step instructions of recipes seen on the show.

Exclusive content can be found on A Taste of History's, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube pages.