I’m a market tour guide and one of the stops I favour for tastings is a grey, oval-shaped food truck that sells local mussels. You buy them cleaned and prepped for cooking or turned into half a dozen dishes ready to eat there and then. In their cramped confines, the staff busy themselves cleaning, chopping and serving and still manage a friendly smile when I turn up with my dozen or so guests.

Minutes later, a perky staffer pops their head out of the side window assuring us the molluscs shall arrive imminently. I get to telling my audience how mussels are farmed and why they are such a responsible protein choice when it comes to seafood.

TLDR – Farmed mussels actually benefit the marine environment as they don’t require any extra feed (unlike the majority of aquaculture). As filter feeders, they filter up to 20 litres a day consuming plankton, algae and whatever else comes their way.

If time allows, I’ll move on to rhapsodising about the nutritional aspects of the humble mollusc. Mussels have 5 times the vitamin B12 of beef and 8 times more iron than chicken. Did you know the orangey-red ones are female and the creamy-white ones are male?

Hopefully by now our grilled herb-and-garlic-breadcrumbed mussels have arrived so the guests can eat while they fall in love with mussels. For some people, this will be the first time they’ve tried this particular seafood; for others, they are a dab hand at this.

The large bowl of upturned mussels in chilli coconut cream lures even the shyest eater out of their shell. Occasionally, someone asks what cutlery they should use and I take this opportunity to demonstrate a nifty trick – using an empty shell as pincers to pick out the meat. A singular shell, of course, doubles as a spoon. Mother Nature’s got you covered. I keep the dishes rotating around the table, encouraging everyone to dip the baguette slices into the leftover sauce; this is half the fun of a mussel stew, isn’t it?

The best tip I ever learned was to remove the beard after you’ve lightly cooked the mussels, not beforehand as we’ve often been led to believe. It is infinitely easier (there’s no mussel holding onto it) and causes less damage to the meat. At this stage, you can store the cooked mussels in the fridge for a day or two covered in the strained pot liquor or you can freeze for 3 months. To serve, simply warm the meat through in your sauce of choice. The only key here is not to overcook the mussels as they will become tough.

You might already make moules marinières (white wine/garlic/cream sauce) or tomato & chilli mussels. I also can’t stress how easy the grilled mussels are to prep – and consume – so I do urge you to consider adding that one to your list. There are a plethora of mussel recipes on the internet so I’m not going to bore you with a comprehensive catalogue of recipes. I will, however, share this one I make on occasion when I want to mix things up a bit.