Cleaning mussels this morning after a trip to the fishmonger got me thinking about food and the differences between how we regard food in the US and here. (After all, what else are you going to do while you clean mussels except think? It’s a boring job but someone has to do it.)
The thing I’ve noticed is how in the states we expected everything to be already processed for us. We wanted our meat to be boneless with no fat on it and our shrimp to be already cleaned. I’m not quite sure why things got to that point.
Actually, by using food this way, we were missing out on a lot of flavor.
The other day I bought some pork “steaks” at the butcher that were cut from the neck of the pig. They were very marbled with fat, but the meat was extremely tender and they were delicious roasted over hot coals. In the states no one would have touched them, considering them an inferior cut of meat, without knowing what they missed.
Another example is shrimp. Judging from what I’ve seen in the past, the majority of people buy it already cleaned and most often frozen. But, if you cook the shrimp whole, with the head and shell still attached, it is a lot more flavorful. Try making a shrimp bisque with cleaned shrimp – it would have no flavor at all.
Stews, soups and gravies turn out much better if you wait to remove the bones until after it’s cooked.
So, what do they do in the states with all of the meat that is considered too bony or fatty? Maybe I don’t want to know.
This leads to other observations about processed foods too. Read the labels on that processed food. I think we miss out on a lot of nutrients that way. And also, why do meat products need added sugar or corn starch?
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In America, in the south, you probably find fattier cuts of meat in local ‘neighborhood’ types of markets or it goes into making hot dogs, processed meat or pet foods. While eating the food of country folk is big here in Italy I don’t think it has caught on as much in the US. My father and at least one of his sisters would not eat mussels. Their Italian parents had convinced them that mussels were what poor people ate.
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Mary Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I never really thought of mussels as “poor people” food. But, when it comes down to it, what I was trying to get at was that people have started to cook differently. They no longer want bones in their meat so they have to cut around it, etc. But, some of the best cuts of meat are around the bone. How many nutrients are we missing because we refuse to eat anything that hasn’t been completely cleaned and processed for us?
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When I was a kid in Maine, no one ate mussels. WE didn’t even know they were edible, although they sort of resemble clams and oysters, which we ate with glee.
Then I moved far away, became a poor single mom starting a career and I bought mussels from a man who drove down from Maine every Friday because it was the only fresh seafood I could afford. Mainers also did not eat crabs, so he sold those too. I love mussels, and yet I only discovered them because I couldn’t afford lobster.
It’s hard to fail with mussels! (OTH, at my Coop they can clean them for you in a machine, but you must eat them the very same day without fail.)
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Mary Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I’d never even heard of mussels until I went to France (Brittany) during a semester abroad at college. Actually there were a lot of things I’d never heard of or eaten until that point – my upbringing was mostly meat and potatoes since my dad thinks the only vegetables that should be eaten are corn, baked beans and peas – and the only fish we ever ate was fish sticks. It was an eye-opening experience. I was never that interested in cooking until I went there and discovered all those “new” foods.
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How do you cook your musseels.
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Mary Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
It depends on what I’m making Rose. Sometimes I just cook them in a large pot with a little olive oil, white wine, salt, garlic and a bay leaf. I bring that mixture to a simmer, then add the mussels and cover the pot until the open. Other times I eat them with pasta by cooking them together with shrimp and clams and the same mixture mentioned above with the addition of some hot pepper. I then remove them from the pan and toss the cooked spaghetti in the sauce that was made by cooking the seafood. Of course, for the best sauce, the shrimp have to be cooked whole.
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My Father loved to go to the docks and buy all kinds of fish and other seafood. When we kids complained about eating it his stock reply was something like this “this is what you would eat in Naples”! Nothing was better than the food he ate in Naples. I love most saltwater seafood. I guess mostly because of my Father and that a lot of fresh water fish tastes like mud!
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Mary Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I have to admit that I like seafood better than freshwater fish too. Although, I’m really not crazy about cleaning fish.
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