Can you eat..... (home, buying, living in)

[The_Mo's]

Can you eat the mussels that attach themselves to the rocks at the beach? I grew up in Maine and we never tried to eat any of them but while I was visiting with my own children they wanted to collect some to bring home and eat. I've had them in restaurants and they taste like clams. Does anyone eat the mussels I'm referring too?

[island mermaid]

Originally Posted by The_Mo's

Can you eat the mussels that attach themselves to the rocks at the beach? I grew up in Maine and we never tried to eat any of them but while I was visiting with my own children they wanted to collect some to bring home and eat. I've had them in restaurants and they taste like clams. Does anyone eat the mussels I'm referring too?

Here's my thought, you probably wouldn't want to eat mussels that had sat out in the sun baking during the low tide. If you were able to find a mussle bed that you were able to get to at low tide that were still submerged, possibly. However, be prepared! They will be full of sand and grit. If you were able to contain them in an onion bag (the old fashioned way) and hang them - under water- for a few days..... maybe they'd be edible. Watch your dental work though!

Most mussels we eat in restaurants are farm grown or rope grown. They aren't grown in the sand so they also have a much better flavor.

[The_Mo's]

Originally Posted by island mermaid

Here's my thought, you probably wouldn't want to eat mussels that had sat out in the sun baking during the low tide. If you were able to find a mussle bed that you were able to get to at low tide that were still submerged, possibly. However, be prepared! They will be full of sand and grit. If you were able to contain them in an onion bag (the old fashioned way) and hang them - under water- for a few days..... maybe they'd be edible. Watch your dental work though!

Most mussels we eat in restaurants are farm grown or rope grown. They aren't grown in the sand so they also have a much better flavor.

That's what I was thinking. Collect some at low tide that are still completely submerged underwater. I've had clams that were fresh from the clam beds and once you run them under cold water and steam them most of the sand is gone. The rest is easily removed when the clam is removed from the shell and dipped in the clam juice. I think next time I'm up that way I'll collect some and give them a try. When my kids mentioned them I started to wonder why people don't collect them and eat them. Mussels taste great!

[dramamama6685]

I'm not a big fan of mussels. It's just one of those things that i fell is an accquired taste.

[mommax3plus2]

my mother used to soak the clams overnight in ocean water and sprinkle in a generous amount of corn meal. i never thought much of it until i realized later in life that i was one of few people who ate the whole clam - she always maintained it purged the sand and other 'stuff' out of the belly, but that you couldnt soak them longer than a tide or it would kill them and she kept them in the fridge to keep them cold.

[Acadianlion]

The only issue with eating shellfish off the beach is a regulatory one. If the Me Dept of Fisheries has declared a red tide or other alert and posted the shoreline in a given area, then the shell fish are not safe to eat.

Thirty years ago when I first moved to Maine I was recovering from an unpleasant divorce. The first summer I lived in my family's summer camp, and had started doing odd jobs to eak out a living. In those earliest days I had to make a choice between driving the six miles to the store to shop or buying some fuel for my truck. There were more than a few days that I decided to stay here, and walked down onto the beach and plucked a large kettle of mussels for dinner. I had a variety of ways to prepare them, but the simpler the better. Mussels helped to keep me alive that first meagre summer.

[BrokenTap]

I'm a farmer not a lobsterman, but I was married to one once!

Oh I love mussels and prefer them over clams any day. As someone else said, to get the sandy gritty taste out of them one must float them in the ocean for 24-48 hours in a crate of some kind. My ex-inlaws always did this and it really helped reduce the grittiness of the clams/mussels.

My in laws never understood the whole red tide issue and looked at it as more of a political thing as a way to dictate price. The powers that be would often draw a line in the sand on some beach and say to the left of it was okay, and to the right was bad. Yeah right, like a shellfish two feet away from one another may be bad, or may be good depending upon the line in the sand. Either way the Marine Patrol enforced the law and often chased my father-in-law from one side of the line to the other. How he could run in the clam flats holding two totes of clams is beyond me, but they never pinched him for it.

Still I prefer lobster!

[forest beekeeper]

We got hooked on muscles while living in Italy.

Seafood pasta is really good!

B makes it for us common enough.

Stateside I do see them in grocery stores, in fact muscles are one of my products in the grocery where I stock shelves p/t.

Generally Americans don't go for muscles, so it has been our observation that you get very little competition when collecting them.

[msina]

I'm not crazy about muscles, we used to gather "winkles" as kids and steam them. Yummy with garlic butter.

[The_Mo's]

Originally Posted by msina

I'm not crazy about muscles, we used to gather "winkles" as kids and steam them. Yummy with garlic butter.

We did that once but boy are they alot of work for just a little meat.

Next time I head up that way I'm going to collect a few buckets of mussels and see how they turn out. Appreciate the replies everyone - thx.