Mussels

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Katlyn Graham:  Hello, I’m Katlyn Graham, here with Steve Woodman, the Co‑CEO and Owner at Woodman’s. Welcome, Steve!

Steve Woodman:  Thank you, Katlyn.

Katlyn:  Thanks for joining us today! Yet another item on your famous menu are mussels. What can you tell us about mussels, Steve?

Steve:  Mussels. They’re different than clams, we offer clams and mussels on our clam bakes. They are both steamed, but with mussels, we cook them a little bit different. We add wine, we add garlic, and other spices. When you have your mussels you have this nice, rich broth that you can swirl them around in and eat them.

Katlyn:  They’re both in a shell, they’re just different animals?

Steve:  Right. They’re both in a shell. The mussel is longer than the steamed clam, and it’s a really dark, dark shell.

Katlyn:  OK. Now, where do you get mussels?

Steve:  We get mussels for our clam bakes from Prince Edward Island, from PEI. There are farm mussel up there, they do a great job in harvesting them and cleaning them and bringing them down. They’re one of the better mussels out there.

Katlyn:  Nice. You had mentioned steaming. Would you just describe that process a little bit?

Steve:  Well, with mussels, what I said is we take, get some wine, we get some garlic, we’ll put a little bit of water in there and other spices. When we put our mussels in the pot, there’s just a little bit of this broth, this rich broth with wine and garlic in there, and we put the fire to it.

It starts steaming and it starts overtaking the mussels and they steam in the pot and they open up. Then we serve them with some of that broth and it’s just delicious.

Katlyn:  Mm. Is it similar to eating a clam? How do you eat mussels?

Steve:  Very similar to eating a clam, but what you do is, you just open up the shell and you take the whole mussel out. You don’t have to worry about taking the skin off the neck, whatever, you can just eat the whole thing that’s there and just pop it in.

Katlyn:  Pop it in the broth and swallow it down.

Steve:  Down it goes.

Katlyn:  You bring both mussels and clams to your clam bakes.

Steve:  That’s right.

Katlyn:  People can, what do people seem to choose more?

Steve:  We have enough for everyone to have both. But sometimes, people will say, “I want all mussels,” sometimes, people will say, “I want all clams.” It all depends what they like, it’s individual choice. But most people like to try both.

Katlyn:  Try them both, there we go. Thank you so much, Steve, for explaining about mussels. We’ll have to come check that out.

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Photo credit: Rusty Clark / Foter / (CC BY 2.0)