They require a level of commitment that is the hallmark of all the best dinners: hands-on murder, hands-in devouring, and plenty of wine. You can’t eat mussels half-heartedly. With mussels, you need to make your peace with eating things that were once alive, and that are now dead, and that you killed to eat; it’s a circle. I like this peace-making – it seems fairer, somehow, than buying lumps of supermarket meat.
