Harvesting Wild Mussels

We bought some 2011 Fishing (specifically shell-fishing) licenses at the local store. An impromptu beach vacation with friends gave the opportunity to hunt our own seafood dinner!

Our beach cottage was perched on the beach of Lincoln City, on a cliff overlooking the ocean and giant rocks that become exposed at low tide. The rocks are covered with wild-life, a free aquarium to explore and discover.

We brought some buckets and chisels and pliers and paint scrapers... tools are definitely helpful. Last year Tim and I went without tools, just a bucket, and this was silly. Now we know. Mussel beards are really strong (the little hairs that hold the shell to the rock) and tools help to pry the shellfish and save your hands from injury.

Not only did we collect mussels, we also harvested some edible barnacles that look like parrot beaks with long mussels that hold them to the rocks... I had seen Anthony Bourdain eat them on his show and he said they were delicious. They were a little more difficult to harvest, but they ended up being super tasty! (even better than the mussels I dare say!) It was a little creepy that the barnacles made noises as we harvested them. Naomi and I squealed and screamed a bit as they hissed and blew bubbles and spit orange juices at us. What can I say, the barnacles put up good fight! We won.

After harvesting and cleaning and cooking them we had a delicious traditional Moules Marinieres. What a great time! Enjoy the slide-show

Mussel Gathering on the Oregon Coast

We went mussel gathering - wanna see the pictures?

People have been eating local mussels from the rocks of the Pacific NW for longer than I can imagine. Come low tide, they are easy pickings and a nutritious tasty treat. There are ancient Native American shell middens found along the Oregon Coast - they offer evidence of people eating mussels (and throwing away the shells in giant heaps) for thousands of years. I find this fascinating! And I happen to love mussels (or shellfish of any kind) - so this seemed like a fun adventure to try!

All it took was a visit to the local Bi-Mart in Lincoln city with our drivers license and whatnot. Friendly exchanges of social security numbers for tidal chart books. No problem. $7/per person and we can now hunt shellfish (with limits) for one year. The next day low tide (during daylight) was around 1:30pm.
Indeed we noticed low tide starting around noon and so we headed down to the beach. Irregardless of the nasty weather (ie clouds, rain and wind) we headed off with only a sand pail and our licenses. The rocks were neat - the Oregon coast line is amazing. For lack of sounding cheesey - it felt like being at an aquarium. Honestly I have spent a lot of time with the ocean, but I've never sought out low tide on purpose and headed into rock formations to find food - it was a totally new perspective! At first we looked on the North side of the rocks... not much... the South side turned out to be where the party was at! Look at all these mussels! It was incredible - so many mussels! Unfortunately we had not thought to bring gloves or knives/chizzles or scissors.. so we had to use our vulnerable fingers and man-oh-man those mussels hold on tight! Those mussel beards are strong. However humans are stronger! Me and Tim are stubborn - once I started to play tug-of-war with one of those fuckers I wasn't about to let the mussel win! For realz. No matter the sharp barnacles and slippery stuff. The cold weather made my fingers numb, so that helped.

In the end we obtained a small amount of mussels. No worries though - we probably picked about 2 dozen before we gave up (we were soaked and frozen - you would have thought it was December!). They were a fun taste-test. We know we need more tools if we do it again. Good weather wouldn't hurt either.