Mussels
Mussels are so plentiful they should be used even more commonly than oysters and clams. They're not only cheaper, but easier to gather, either from brackish or fresh water, if you get a kick out of hunting your own. Their flavor is fine when cooked and they're never eaten raw. Be careful not to take any from polluted waters, however, as they have a rather bad reputation for carrying infection, though this reputation is not always deserved. In some places, they're considered poisonous, which they're not. They are fine when steamed in their own self-contained sea water, the same as clams. Wash whole mussels well, put in kettle with a few tablespoons of water to keep shells from scorching. Just as soon as they pop open they're done. But since mussels have tough meats they are better when taken from their shells and recooked in their own juice until tender, then chilled and eaten with vinegar sauce, or made into:
The entry reflects a period when mussels were treated as free food for the taking, and it makes two claims that current shellfish science flatly contradicts. The points below explain where it goes wrong rather than restating the method.
- Shellfish toxins are not a pollution problemThe text says mussels are "considered poisonous, which they're not." Filter-feeding mussels concentrate saxitoxin and domoic acid from algal blooms in water that is otherwise clean and unpolluted. Neither toxin is destroyed by steaming, and neither can be tasted or smelled. This is why harvest areas are opened and closed by state monitoring rather than by eye.
- Freshwater musselsThe instruction to gather from "brackish or fresh water" is the most serious error. North American freshwater mussels are poor eating and many species are federally or state protected, so taking them is regulated or prohibited in many jurisdictions. The mussels worth eating are marine and estuarine.
- Uncertified wild harvestRecreational shellfish gathering today is regulated by season, area and licence precisely because bacterial contamination and biotoxin levels change week to week. Commercially harvested mussels carry a shellfish tag recording the harvest water and date, which is the only practical assurance an individual cook has.
- "Never eaten raw"On this point the book is right. Raw bivalves can carry Vibrio and norovirus, and mussels are in practice always served cooked.
- The re-cooking stepSimmering shucked mussels in their liquor "until tender" is unlikely to help: mussel meat generally toughens rather than tenderises with extended cooking, and a brief steam is usually all it needs.
- If you want musselsUse a current recipe built around bagged, tagged mussels from a fishmonger, and follow the harvest advisories published for your coast.