Fifty years ago, the tide pools at Moss beach were unregulated. Anybody could visit them and treat them however they wished. We would go as a family. My older brother would bounce between the rocks, stepping on all sorts of marine life. My father would wander elsewhere on his own. My mother, always at her paranoid best, would keep me close to shore where only the shallowest of tide pools were located. Even so, I’d still manage to get my shoes and socks soaked with salt water when a slightly larger than average wave would come in. If I didn’t see a crab out in the open in one tide pool, I’d move to the next. I didn’t have much patience to just sit at one pool and wait for things to happen. Today, I still enjoy the briny smell of the tide pools.

It was not uncommon to see rocks at the tide line covered with mussels. I remember asking about eating them, but I don’t remember what my mother answered. All I know is that we never ate mussels when I was growing up. We’d eat clams in the form of Manhattan-style clam chowder, usually at a small restaurant in Princeton-by-the-Sea, a short drive away from Moss Beach. Clams were another shellfish that we never ate at home. When it was still available, we’d have abalone in restaurants, but I think my mother only attempted this once in home, even though the abalone meat was sold pre-pounded. Except for that which I observed in the wild, shellfish was not really part of my upbringing.

As a young adult, my interest in shellfish didn’t grow much past the occasional linguine with clam sauce or pot of steamers. It would take my son to pry open the door that would eventually lead to my love of mussels. Around 1984, we had occasion to have dinner with the woman who the next year would become my stepmother. At the dinner was myself, my wife, my 10-year old son, my 75-year old father, and his 59-year old date. (My mother had died three years earlier, and my father had recently begun to date.) The meal was at a well-known, local delicatessen-restaurant. My son was just beginning to venture away from a diet of Spaghetti-O’s and macaroni and cheese. When it came time for him to order, he selected a pot of mussels. I was a bit leery, but consented to his selection. Although I was a mussel virgin, I didn’t want to shut off his sense of exploration.

When the mussels arrived, they didn’t appear altogether inviting. The bright orange mussel meats sat in their black shells in an equally black, cast-iron pot. The whole table tried the mussels and found them to be rubbery and off in flavor and smell. My son still managed to finish almost half of the pot.

Thus put off, it would be another ten years or so until I would try mussels again. This time it would be in Marseilles. My wife and I were vacationing in the south of France and had chosen Marseilles as our base. Each night we’d eat at one of the outdoor restaurants near our hotel. One night, tired of finfish, I decided to order the moules à la Marinière, mussels in a white-wine sauce. The result this time was much different than a decade earlier. These mussels were delightful. I savored each mussel as I removed it with a small fork from its shell, and popped it in my mouth. I then sopped up all the cooking liquid with bread. I probably would have licked the bowl if I had not been in a public place. That evening was the start of my love affair with mussels.

About that same time, my business was taking me to Europe once or twice a month, and somehow I would almost always end up in Paris on the Friday night of each trip. Sometimes I had associates to eat dinner with, but usually I was on my own. A few blocks from my usual hotel was a restaurant, part the Léon de Bruxelles chain, that specialized in mussels. This location had large windows in the front where a passerby could look into the brightly lit dining room and see all the happy diners eating their mussels and fries, which they washed down with Alsatian or Belgium beer.

One cold and rainy night, the whole scene just drew me in. I sat at a small table and perused the full-color, plastic-laminated menu. Each variety of mussels was described in full detail and available in a variety of menu combinations as well as à la carte. As in Marseilles, I chose Les moules à la Marinière, which was the cheapest combination on the menu, along with pomme frites and a bière. I no longer remember what the meal cost my company, but I know it was well within my daily budget.

I do remember how much I enjoyed those mussels, as well as the whole process of removing each mussel from its shell, dipping it in some of the cooking liquid, and eating it. This was messy work and the little foil-wrapped towelette served with the mussels was incapable of cleaning up the mess I had made on my hands. After that initial evening, I’ve eaten many more times at Léon’s as well as other mussel purveyors around France. I’ve even had the occasion to share a potful or two in Paris with my son.

My love of mussels grew to the point that when I started my website of French food, the second single-ingredient article I wrote was about mussels. In the article, I explored a wide range of mussels dishes, not just the ubiquitous steamed-mussel variety. One dish was a mussel salad with a “Thai” dressing. I had found the recipe in a 2-year old issue of Cuisine Actuelle, one of the cheap French cooking magazines I was buying in those days. I liked the recipe because much of it could be prepared in advance, which made serving easy. It turned out to be a nice start to a meal on a hot day, a role it’s played many times in my dining room.

When I became interested in amuse-bouche, and I thought about my current cooking repertoire, this recipe seemed like an easy one to adapt. I think it was one of the first amuse-bouche I served. It conversion from first course to amuse-bouche involved eliminating the lettuce it was served with and intensifying the flavors of the sauce. The quantities given below are for 4 servings. Because mussels are living when I buy them, but sometimes expire before I get a chance to cook them, I usually purchase a few extra. The variety of live mussels available to me are the black PEI mussels and Australian green-lip mussels. In my opinion, the PEI mussels are a bit smaller and have a nicer flavor, so that is what I use. They are also the closest to the mussels I purchase in France. One possible recipe variation to consider is to substitute coconut cream for the heavy (cow’s) cream.