Beat The Butcher at the Beach Part 1

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A call to the Fish and Game Department in the area—to determine seasons, size and bag limits, and license needs—is also a good idea. Local sporting goods stores can sell you a permit (if one is needed). They usually can e supply you with a yearly tide table, too . . . which will help you plan your expeditions around the prime foraging times (from two hours before low tide till two hours after).

Finally, NEVER EAT ANY SHELLFISH THAT ISN'T UNQUESTIONABLY FRESH. A general rule is to discard each and every bivalve that doesn't resist your efforts to open its shell, or that doesn't close itself more tightly when touched.

MUSSELS

O.K., now that you've checked the purity of the water in your area, protected yourself against the game warden, and promised not to eat anything that wasn't alive when you found it . . . you're probably eager to start fillin' up that of collection bag. And the quickest way to make the sack bulge is with a passel of mussels.

Members of the genera Mytilus and Modiolus—mussels of one variety or another—can be found along just about any portion of the North American coastline . . . east or west. Westerners should limit their gathering to a season running from November through April, since—during the rest of the year—the bivalves found in their area may ingest microscopic dinoflagellates which can cause illness in humans. And the old rule of thumb—only harvest shellfish during months that contain an "r"—should do quite nicely for folks on the East Coast.

Once the season begins, a sharpened tire iron or heavy bladed knife and a gunnysack (I prefer a backpack lined with a plastic bag . . . it keeps my hands free) will be all the tools you'll need to go musselin'.

Finding yourself a bed of delicious mollusks to dig into Should present no problem, either. Just locate a rocky area near the low tide line and-if mussels are present-you'll be hard pressed not to walk on 'em. My favorite "gatherin' grounds" are upwards of a half mile long and composed of clusters of tasty shellfish packed together like mosaic tiles!

Obviously with colonies of this size and density, it's an easy matter to pry off enough (a dozen apiece will do for most folks, two dozen will satisfy even the most voracious consumer of seafood) for your eatin' needs.

And while you're foraging up those mussels, have a look around the rocks for a clump of the long-stemmed, white-shelled goose barnacles whichthough they look like a cross between a mushroom and a gander-are closely related to crabs. These bizarre creatures (of the genus Mitella on the West Coast and Lepas in the Atlantic) are lobster-like in flavor and as easy as pie to collect. I just scrape the black stems off of their rocky perches . . . and try for a compromise between getting the maximum amount of stalk with the minimum of grit and sand!

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