It had been two years since my friend Summer’s last visit to Maine so I was excited to plan some activities for another real “Maine Experience”.  Since we are both lovers of seafood my main goal of this trip was to bring her musseling.  I doubt that’s the correct term but that’s how we refer to picking mussels off the rocks.  Before you set off on your foraging adventure you need to check on two things pertaining to tides: 1) verify that there is no red tide (we call the Scarborough Maine hotline since our mussel bed is in Pine Point) and 2.) the tide needs to be low so you don’t have to bust out the scuba gear.

Pine Point Co-Op

An old onion bag works great to hold your mussels in and it would also behoove you to wear some type of water friendly footwear so you don’t scrape up your feet on the barnacles.  My brother and I like to debeard the mussel as soon as we pick them to get all of the dirty work over with or you can wait and do it in your kitchen sink.  A trick we use to get the barnacles off the mussels is to scrape them against the other barnacles on the rock, with those removed they start looking more like the ones you get in the restaurant.  Before I cook the mussels I like to soak them in a bucket of water with a couple tablespoons of flour for an hour or two so they can discharge the excess grit and sand.

Basic Sauteed Mussels are a perfect recipe to wing, here are the key components:  olive oil, tons of garlic, white wine, diced tomato, freshly chopped parsley and a large saute pan with a lid.

Heat olive oil and garlic in a saute pan until fragrant.  Add mussels and white wine (don’t go too heavy because the mussels release a lot of juice) turn up the heat and put the lid on.  After a few minutes stir them around and add the diced tomatoes once some of the mussels begin to open.  Put lid back on and keep checking/stirring every minute or so until all the mussels are opened.  Add freshly chopped parsley to the top and serve with grilled bread and a freshly picked salad.

Arugula and Chive Salad
Summer took care of the salad while I cooked the mussels.  She picked some lettuce, arugula and chives from my brother’s garden and made a simple vinaigrette.  The fun part about the salad was that it was made in early June when the chive blossoms were in full bloom and added beautiful taste and color to the freshly picked salad.

A delicious Summer Meal by Land…

& Sea…