Mussels

[PossiblyPFB]

Fairly trivial but....

We love Mussels and chips (specifically Moules marienère style) in our house and I find them a great dinner party option as an easy but impressive main dish for a crowd, with skinny chips, salad, and French bread to sop up the sauce.

I always check whether anyone has any dietary requirements or particular dislikes to avoid before hosting. Now I find myself having to ask, and so, what’s your view on molluscs, as some people who ‘are easy’ will say actually, yeah, no mussels thanks when I double check.

It’s become apparent to me that mussels (in general, not mine- which are delicious!) .....are very marmite.

So I’m interested in the MN vote......

Mussels are amazing (YANBU)
Mussels are the worst (YABU)
If they are the worst- WHY??? Help me understand!

Thank you in advance!

Pretty much a cheap and cheerful staple here as well as being one of the easiest things to cook.
I read somewhere (Nigella possibly) that about half the people who think they're allergic just haven't cleaned them properly- they are bottom feeders like plaice, bass etc and need a lot of scrubbing) Don't know how true that is but a disproportionate number of British friends seem to be allergic compared to people here.
I can't wait for them to be in season again- wouldn't eat them in winter months as they're a bit meh.

I love scallops, lobster and prawns but give all other seafood a miss because the taste, the sight and the texture of it all repulses me. Mussels are no exception, vile 🤢.

@whitesoxx- without proper testing, we will never know whether our sudden illness was caused from norovirus, but 'food poisoning' could be from many different causes- norovirus, salmonella, capylobacter etc. Our symptoms matched norovirus, plus there had been outbreaks reported the week we became ill from other mussel eaters!

I didn't like the choice of vote so I want to clarify mine. It's a very tasty dish, but I personally don't eat it anymore, and I think it's too much if an assumption in this day and age to serve it. It's not like the old days when you ate what you were given. People think a lot about what they eat now and this isn't a common choice.

Vile. I love seafood but mussels and cockles have always made me gag. As a child holidaying in France every year I would always try them, even as an adult up until 7 years or so ago I'd try them as my dad just adores them I thought I'd finally get it but no.
On a side note, I tried oysters for the first time recently and got food poisoning. Nice restaurant too, but reading some of the food poisoning symptoms on here has brought it back just how ill seafood can make you!! Oh my life, never experienced anything like it. So no oysters, mussels or cockles for me but bring on the scallops, prawns, crab and lobster mmmm

I adore them and buy a box most weeks - I wouldn’t serve them at a dinner party though

Not for me, it’s the texture I can’t deal with, the only shellfish I can cope with is scallops because they have a different kind of texture. I love fish and crustaceans though.

Love mussels. I had amazing moules frites in Brussels that I still dream of.

But a couple of years ago I bought some from the fish counter and I think they were less fresh than I’d have hoped. I’ve always been a bit reluctant to cook mussels for fear of cooking/eating one that I shouldn’t but I’d erred on the side of caution and chucked out any I wasn’t sure about (I’m generally a scrape-the-mould-off-and-eat-the-rest cook but not with seafood). But I was still horrendously ill afterwards and nearly ended up hospitalised.

But this thread has reminded me how much I’ve missed them. But maybe ones that come in a packet this time...

Although London has a large seafood market I am very suspicious of eating them in my adopted city, alongside any seafood here. I have had them in pasta but no seafood I have tasted in the Capital has ever really tasted really fresh.

I have been to Devon on holiday, and seen my lunch being brought ashore about two hours before it's on my plate, which has been the most awesome shellfish ever. Similarly, in the south of Italy, the shellfish has been sublime.

Once a piece of mussel shell ended up embedded in my gum (it was hidden in my meal, down in Torquay) which required some home dentistry with a toothpick and mouthwash, so I'm wary of the buggers now.

Yabu

I don't trust people to cook them properly. High risk of food poisoning

Plus, we had some in Le Touquet years ago and each of my mussels has a tiny crab inside. Put me off for life.

Probably a bit outing but DH and I were in a fairly fancy restaurant with dc and we were eating delicious mussels as a starter. DH told exceptionally fussy DC he would buy him favourite toy if he tried our mussels - not thinking child would agree.
Just as our next course was being served DC had a big sooonful of mussels and threw up immediately onto waiters feet 🙈🙈

Love mussels but with bread , don’t really get the need for chips or salad

I love them bur most people i know don't! I would never consider serving them to guests.

I think most people probably don't like them. They're in the same category as liver. So I would only serve them to people you know like them.

I used to love them but once had some really big ones that looked like vaginas and 2 of them had little tiny crabs inside. Totally freaked me out and now I avoid them.

I'm another one who gets really sick after eating them!

YANBU - can I come for dinner please?

Used to love them. Had a bad one, knew the second I bit into it, it was rough, despite spitting it out suffered the consequences. That put me off for a good while as the smell would bring up the bad memory.
I'm okay with them now but don't seek them out to eat the way I used to.

They're probably the only thing I just cannot even attempt anymore. They immediately give me this heady nauseous feeling. I wish I did like them because I love smell of that garlicky sauce they're cooked in.

I can't stand the texture of them and never eat them.

I dont like shellfish full stop.

I wouldn't class them as amazing. Just good.
I prefer clams among molluscs, but mussels can go second.
I like them enough and would be very happy to eat them if I was invited.

People can be very squeamish about seafood though. It's the texture and some of it is pretty weird-looking.

I'm getting better, at 50 I will now eat mussels, king prawns, lobster, calamari etc but the idea of a prawn sandwich still makes me gag. And I could never put a whitebait in my mouth

It was the smell that tempted me in most cases; king prawns in a tapas restaurant, the broth at the bottom of a pan of moules mariniere, it's a sort of sweetness combined with the garlic, white wine etc that's so mouthwatering.

Amazingly 10yo DS, who is quite averse to trying new things, likes a mussel. He asked to try mine when we were out for lunch recently and ended up scoffing half of them.

I have been violently sick each time I have eaten raw fish (salmon and some sort of white fish tartar). I assume there's a bacteria in it that my body just can't handle. Consequently I have never dared try sushi or any other raw fish. Shellfish so far hasn't been a problem though.

@dodgeballchamp - exactly the same happened to me! Love them, but one day, I started puking within an hour or two of eating them and ever since, they've made me violently ill.

I don't even have to actually eat the buggers, a friend cooked a lovely seafood chowder and I ate it, but picked out all the mussels and gave them to DP. Still got very ill.

A friend had a similar thing with oysters - used to eat them and was fine, until one day she wasn't, and now can't eat them at all.

But I've had the opposite thing with prawns. The first time I ate them I went into anaphylaxis. I was so allergic that if I kissed someone who'd eaten prawns, I'd get hives round my mouth. But I can eat them fine now, although sometimes I get an itchy rash (crab sometimes gives me a rash, too, and hives round my mouth).

Seafood's weird.