Winter Foraging: Mussels

One of the few things you can harvest in wintertime is fresh and salt water mussels. I hesitate to mention this as it's not allowed in some states. There's a good reason for that: they're filter feeders and are rivers are polluted. Of course, those same rivers are fished in, and if the SHTF and you're starving, then you'll probably attempt it anyway.

Mussels pack a lot of nutrients in a small package. I like them steamed in a little chicken broth with garlic and maybe a little diced onion and some wine. To me, it's an inexpensive meal if I have some good chewy bread with that, and I'm perfectly satisfied.

Mussels have little beards on them. Here's how to deal with them:
[link to allrecipes.com]

One of the best sites is Eat the Weeds. Green Deane did an article on them:
[link to www.eattheweeds.com]

Mussels were commonly harvested back during the frontier period. The shells were used for making buttons. The First People used them for jewelry:
[link to www.museum.state.il.us]

It was also used as a tempering agent for making pottery. Look here for a plethora of uses for sea shells of all kinds.
[link to www.manandmollusc.net]