Mussels in beer and how to start a Flemish family war.

Every day during lock down my boyfriend has a video call with his family. Initially it started because his mother was completely isolating alone, after having some mild Covid symptoms, but still continues even now that we in Belgium are able to meet each other. Currently he and his family meet every Sunday for a meal, a time that I should feel guilty to admit, but I have begun to really look forward to. It gives me a day to myself to get on with things like this, which is something that I need the peace and solitude to enjoy.

The daily family call is usually roughly around 6 pm, and so the topic of what we are about to eat after the call will ALWAYS come up. It is a measure of how much better my dutch has gotten, but I seem to be able to understand most of the conversation these days from the other end of the room. Though I hope Arne doesn’t realise this, as I’ll then be forced to go to more family dinners, and will lose this day to myself. On this day I realized the topic of what I was cooking had come up, however, when I heard his mother shriek “Mosselen en bier!#!$#!”.

To me this is not a particularly controversial recipe. I have eaten it in many countries and in many cities. There are even recipes online that call it a Belgian dish, so the reaction from someone who is essentially my mother in law was a shock. What it taught me, though, was that Flemish people are very strict about how they eat mussels. In fact, they are very strict about a number of classic recipes which I have also l learnt the hard way..

Thinking about it, however, I shouldn’t have been surprised. On more than one occasion my bf and I have had rows about how to cook mussels. One such argument happened in the middle of a supermarket in Epernay in France. If my memory is correct, I stormed off after a shouting match and screaming “fine lets boil them in celery then?!?!?”.

At that time we were camping in Champagne and had decided to cook some mussels that night. I wanted to have them in a sauce with chills, tomatoes and linguine with lots of garlic. I suggested this to Arne and his response was to screw up his face and say

“that is not how you cook mussels though..”.

I know it is stupid to get angry about something as silly as how to cook mussels, as it is ultimately all about preference and personal taste, but it was like he was telling me and every other person on the planet that there was only one way to cook an ingredient and if you don’t do it that way, you are wrong. There was some element of culinary superiority and nationalism tied into it and it pissed me off (and still does) no end. No one would ever say that about chicken, so why does it apply to mussels? It is a kind of orthodoxy with food that I think is just gross.

I have also seen it from a lot of Italian friends. One such friend several years ago who I had a casual sex thing with would always complain about the food if he knew something had been done differently and it was an Italian recipe (even though in Italy everyone disagrees on what the correct way is).

When it came to wine he would always be incredibly negative about the bottle if it was not from Italy. I became so annoyed by this that I would secretly give him a non-Italian wine and pretend that it was. Then later give him the Italian wine he brought and tell him it was French. Obviously it had nothing to do with where it was from, he was just a snob, and so would always criticize the one he had been told was not Italian, even though it was the bottle he had brought.

And so I have a bit of a thing about being told what I can’t do when it comes from such a snobish place. The more someone reacts, the more I double down. In the end I feel I got the last laugh with this beer recipe, however. Arne said after eating it that it was the best mussels he’d ever eaten. I will also cook it for his mother whenever she next visits, though I doubt she will give an honest reaction..Ingredients

• 1kg of mussels
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves of garlic (I think I may have used more)
• Bunch of flat leaf parsley
• Butter (big knob)
• Olive oil (to stop butter burning)
• 1 stick of celery, plus some of the leaves
• Salt Pepper
• 1 bottle of blonde beer. I used a cheep Omer beer. You can use ordinary beer. Just not a dark one. Benefit of blonde or wheat be is the perfumed flavour it gives.
• Dollop Cream

Instructions

I think a lot of people think cooking mussels is a lot more risky or difficult than it actually is. It is really very simple with only two rules you need to follow: a) don’t cook any mussels that do not close when tapped against the edge of the sink before cooking and b) don’t eat any that do not open during cooking.

Before cooking place the mussels in cold water in the (clean) sink. You will need to scrape off any barnacles and pull off the beards that some of them may have. Usually they’re cleaned pretty well these days, so you shouldn’t have too much of a task. Gently tap each mussel against the side of the sink if it is open. If it does not close, throw it in the bin. Once you’ve cone this to all of them, put them to one side.

Put the oil and butter in a pan. It’s important to use butter and oil here as the oil stops the butter from burning or browning. Once the butter is melted add the sliced onions and thinly chopped celery. Slowly stir them until the onions are soft, but not brown. You don’t want the heat too high here.

Once the onions are soft add the garlic. This is another reason I like to use butter in this recipe. The smell of the garlic is just that bit more fragrant with butter than with olive oil. Add a little salt and pepper now, but not too much as the mussels will be somewhat salty. The salt right now will bring out the moisture of the garlic and stop it from burning or going to that woody texture smoky smell which I can’t stand.

Once the garlic is soft, but not brown, pour all of the mussels into the pan. Then add the whole bottle of beer. You may need to do this a little slowly so that it doesn’t bubble up too much to the surface. Place the lid on the pan and leave for about 5–7 minutes. Open at 5 minutes and they should all be open, but if not, let it continue to 7. The aroma right now should be heavenly.

Pour in the cream and give them a gentle stir before covering in the chopped parsley. I ate them with roast potatoes as I don’t have a deep fat fryer to do fries, as is traditional in Flanders. I also made a green been salad and had some confit tomatoes I’d made a few days before.

Also lots more beer was consumed too.

If you try it, I hope you enjoy it.

Sam