- What we are about to do now is something
we've never done on Dining on a Dime ever before.
We're about to go on a boat tour, and then we're gonna go
eat some fried alligator and frog legs.
That's right.
We are here at Coopertown Air Boat Tours and Restaurant.
Just on the border of Everglades National Park,
and so we're gonna go on one of these air boat tours,
hopefully luck out, and spot a gator or two,
and then we're gonna go to the restaurant next door.
So this is super exciting for me.
I've never had gator before,
and I've never been on an air boat tour.
So let's go and check it out.
I'm excited.
(lively music)
Captain Jesse, we're in Everglades National Park?
- We're in the northeast corner of it.
- Okay.
It certainly is beautiful.
Very peaceful.
- It's very unique, very mystic,
and very exotic. - Yeah a bit exotic.
Yeah, I've never been anywhere like this.
- The river is half the distance
it used to be.
When you left out of Miami and you go
where that wooden bridge?
Right there, that was the edge of the Everglades.
50% of it's gone.
- Wow.
How long have you been doin' this?
- Coopertown started in 1945.
The Depression was goin' in at that time and uh,
war was ending so everybody was losing jobs,
so cousins came down to Florida
and started frogging for a living.
People start asking my cousin well
take us out for a ride out there or somethin'
my cousin finally says let me build a little bit bigger boat
and in the daytime, we'll take people for a ride
and at night time, we'll still frog.
The boats were smaller.
They were about half this size,
and they were aircraft engines.
- Why can't you have just a regular speed boat
or a regular submerged engine?
- Well it's going to get twisted up
in all the grass and weed that's in here.
It's like a skid, really.
You basically hydroplane across the top of the water.
In certain times of the year,
the water out here gets down to where
we're right at a drought level.
We'll just have a thin film with water on it.
- [Lucas] Sure
- And these boats will still run.
Other than that, there's no way to get out here.
The Everglades are the water supply of everything
from West Palm Beach all the way to Key West
and without this water here, it'd be like
the middle of Arizona. You'd have a desert
and everything out here is raised in a wet environment
so it has to swim.
If it can't swim, it don't survive.
Even rabbits will swim.
If they run out of food
in one spot, they will swim around to the next place.
We've got 350 species of birds,
we've got white-tailed deer, raccoons, possums,
squirrels, otter, rabbit, mink, wild boar,
black bear, panther.
- And of course, you'll see some gators out here.
- We're going to see some gators out here.
- You hear, kind of, urban legends about alligators,
you know, you flush an alligator down the toilet
and then it goes in the sewer.
That they're really crawling all over Florida,
is that true?
- If there's water in Florida, there's either
an alligator has been there, will be there, or is there.
(Lucas laughs)
- Or is there right now.
- They really use the coastal waterways.
They'll travel canal systems.
As long as there's water, then they'll travel it.
So that's why it's not uncommon to find one
in someone's swimming pool or in their backyard.
- [Lucas] Wow.
- [Jesse] Yeah, because of the canal systems.
- So what's the plan now?
- We're going to see if we can find
a little bit of wildlife in here.
Then we're going to take you to go back
to the restaurant and we're going show you
a little bit about how we cook a little bit of alligator.
- Sounds good Jesse, thank you so much.
- Okay, let's try it.
(upbeat music)
(animal calling)
- [Jesse] That's basically similar
to the sound of a baby alligator,
so a lot of times the alligators are curious,
so they'll check it out.
(animal calling)
(upbeat music)
- Shhh, he's sleeping.
(alligator calling)
(upbeat music)
- We need you to sign a release.
Can I get your email address?
I don't know if alligators use email.
So long buddy.
It's like when a dog follows you home.
(lively music)
- So we have here, diced and breaded and fried
nuggets of alligator tail.
This is the prime rib
of gator right here.
So this is the finest cut,
the tail meat.
The big, fat tail on the alligator,
some of which get to be 19 feet long.
It's a little bit meatier, like pork, a little bit firmer,
but it's extremely lean.
These are breaded
in a cornmeal batter and then they're fried.
The seasoning on the outside of these is very strong.
It's that kind of very classic italian seasoning.
Onion powder, organo, garlic, with a little bit of paprika.
It does resemble chicken or pork
in texture and flavor a little bit.
It's really nice.
I'm going to move on to frog legs.
(upbeat music)
- This is a nice, juicy piece of meat.
The frog legs relative to the gator,
a little bit more juice, a little bit more fatty,
a little greasier.
It has a lot of flavor.
(upbeat music)
- Tim
- Lucas, nice to meet you.
Help yourself to my frog legs dude.
Tell me exactly how you feel about them.
- My uncle Tom turned me on to frog legs
when I was about seven years old.
Most kids would not eat frog legs.
I eat them whenever I get a chance
and I've never had a frog leg like this.
This is like a chicken drumstick.
There is a ton of meat on them.
It's thick and sweet, but not chewy at all.
- Did you get to go on a boat ride?
- We did one of the airboats,
and we actually saw two gators while we were out,
and just the ride itself, even if we hadn't seen any animals
that ride would've been well worth it.
- [Lucas] It's a lot of fun, right?
- It's a lot of fun.
- [Lucas] Kind of going through the grass.
- The boat kind of glides to one side and then the other
and it feels like you're hydroplaning,
but it feels completely safe.
- Yeah, it's a real special, special place.
- Yeah
- [Lucas] Tim, nice talking to you.
- Thanks very much, have a great day.
- Thank you
(lively music)
- It's really cool that you can go
a relatively short ways out of Miami
and it's like a completely different country out here.
It's super serene.
It's really just water and grass
and a ton of wildlife.
So I think that's a really neat
aspect of Miami and of the area that
you have this within striking distance and it's very close.
This place is just a cool story.
What's neat is that it sort of combines
this experiential aspect also with the culinary aspect.
You can go ride around for an hour around the Everglades
and then you can come and you can have a meal
and you can eat what you saw,
which is kind of messed up in some ways,
but it's also really cool because it's like
this is real and this is what people eat
and this is part of the life for a lot of people down here.
(upbeat music)
Okay folks, I really hope you enjoyed this episode
of Dining on a Dime from Coopertown
Airboat Rides and Restaurant in Coopertown, Miami, Florida.
If you'd like to watch more, please click here.
Frog legs are fun because you can make them dance.
(Lucas singing)
Have them form a little kick line.
(Lucas humming)
Kids watching at home, don't play with your food.