To object to this wanky description?

[echt]

Just seen a recipe which describes mussels as "hand-dived".

FFS.

Does that make them taste better?!!?

as opposed to foot or mouth dived?

Isn't that crappy grammar? Shouldn't it say "Hand Harvested" or "Gathered by hand"?

YABU - shell fish that are hand-dived are picked individually up from the sea bed, shell fish that are not hand-dived are dredged which basically means a big bucked dragged along destroying the entire sea floor and everything on it which is then killed and chucked back in.

hand-dived is seriously important to the marine environment.

bucket not bucked

YANBU. To be properly wanky it should just have said 'Hand-job.'

As well as being wanky, 'hand-dived' is just rubbish. Makes it sound like the mussels did the diving (aided by a hand) not the harvester.

I take your point, fluffles, in fact the mussel beds referred to are probably at the bottom of my street. :)

was it on a waitrose recipe card?

FFS! I hate all that pretentious crap when it comes to food Jesus! ARGH!

its not pretentious crap- it explains how it has been caught!! like line caught tuna vs massive fishing boats dredging!

yes much better to just buy any old shite, who needs marine biodiversity anyway? kill joy fuckers trying to save the oceans

And whats with the 'dolphin friendly tuna' i've never seen them out on the ale together.

But this was on a recipe, the OP said. Not on a product.

So, yes, while it would be nice to only buy hand picked mussels, it is hardly necessary for making the dish, now is it?

I am all for saving our oceans and fishing sustainably, but I do think including that on the recipe is pretentious.

It's true, Tee2072, a recipe published in the Age Epicure; the home of pretentious shoite.

It's a bit like "pan-fried". As DH says: I'm allergic to pans.

YANBU - the term definitely sounds pretty daft with regard to mussels - I thought they were bred on long ropes which are just pulled up to the surface? And surely if they aren't farmed mussels you don't actually dive for them, but just gather them along the shore at low tide? So don't really see where diving comes into it, let alone "hand-diving".

Nonetheless, it is an important distinction when talking about scallops, as they are otherwise gathered using huge dredge nets which can destroy the sea floor. So best to buy the kind that have been gathered by divers - for some strange reason hand dived is the term most commonly used for this type of shellfish. Makes me cringe every time I hear it though!

Well, echt, if you're going to read pretentious shoite, you're going to get pretentious shoite!

Snurk!