Many years ago, long before the days of ‘food for free’, I went on holiday with my family in north Cornwall. When we got down to the beach, two things struck me: that the rocks towering over the beach at low tide were covered with lovely mussels, and that nobody was collecting them. We soon set to, and back in our rented cottage we began the long but happy process of soaking and scrubbing them. We had them with spaghetti and in salads, we made soup out of them and we stuffed them. Why no one else took advantage of the God-given bounty was always a mystery to me.
The most popular Italian molluscs are mussels and clams, both available here in Britain. The best Italian clams are vongole veraci – palourdes – which you can order from any reputable fishmonger. The vongola comune – golden carpet shell – is also found in British waters. It is smaller and less sweet than the vongola verace, but it can be used for soups or with spaghetti. Mussels are becoming more and more popular in Britain, and there are now plenty of them around: French, Dutch, British and even huge New Zealand ones during the summer months.
To clean mussels or vongole, put them in a basin of cold water. Leave the clams in the water for some time so that they disgorge any sand in the shell. Scrub the molluscs hard with a stiff brush. Some clams and farm mussels are quite clean, while other mussels are often covered with barnacles, though these are easy to knock off. Also tug off the beards. Wash thoroughly in several changes of cold water if necessary. Drain and throw away any mollusc that remains open when tapped on a hard surface; it is dead and must not be eaten. When I cook them in order to open them, my secret is to put 8 or 10 garlic cloves and 1 or 2 lemons cut into quarters at the bottom of large pan. The lemons help to destroy any bacteria in the molluscs, and the liquor left at the bottom of the pan after the molluscs have opened becomes more tasty. Discard any mollusc which remains tight shut after heating.