Croatian families came to Louisiana for the oysters. They settled Plaquemines Parish below New Orleans where the Mississippi meets the Gulf and built an oyster industry that still feeds the city's tables and the country's exports — Louisiana produces more oysters than any other state. Their surnames carved into the tombs at Grand Isle Cemetery match the names painted on shrimp boats working the same waters today, alongside Cajun and Filipino fishing families who've worked the island for over two centuries. Drago Cvitanovich opened a restaurant in Fat City in 1969 and invented the charbroiled oyster — butter, garlic, Parmesan, screaming hot grill — a recipe now copied across Louisiana. The Cvitanovich family still runs both locations. The barrier island floods every 2.68 years on average; the families stay anyway. It's what the work asks.
