Calabash isn't just the name of a town, it's a buzzword for good eating. To prepare food Calabash-style requires coating fresh shrimp, fish, oysters, clams or crabs with a light, flavorful batter, then giving them a dip in a searing hot fryer until they are lightly golden.

One of the Grand Strand's most popular regional delicacies is Calabash seafood, a distinct style that involves lightly battered, deep fried and freshly caught seafood harvested from the Atlantic Ocean and inlets along the Carolina coast.

This was the birth of "Calabash Seafood". A few years later, Calabash would become known as "The Seafood Capital of the World". Today it is a tourist area, with an abundance of fine restaurants, shops and golf courses.

But to find out where it got started, a trip to Calabash, a town that bills itself as the “Seafood Capital of the World,” is necessary. Calabash style seafood is believed to have been born in the 1930s when local families fried cornbread and fish along the Calabash River.