You’re standing on the beach as the sun sets on the horizon, your bare toes buried in the warm sand. You’re in a dream, totally mesmerized by the flames of the wood fire flickering up and around the pan of mussels slowly steaming open in a bath of good beer and fine herbs. The smell of ocean combined with the scent of fire and fresh seafood is raw and wild, fresh, carrying imaginings that can’t exactly be explained, but which are gifting you with a kind of passionate inner energy.
Check the weather report, grab your backpack and some friends and head out to the beach—you don’t even need to know how to swim because this isn’t about getting into the water. It’s about eating and it’s about living the outdoor life and foraging for your food*. You’ll be in good company—many top restaurants in the world today use foraged wild foods on their menus. One of the most well-known and respected is the famed Copenhagen restaurant Noma, where Rene Redzepi is all about foraging the best and most interesting foods to use in fabulous dishes.
Here’s what you need for basics: a beach with a picnic area that has built-in grills (hopefully with some picnic tables nearby); a lightweight pot big enough to hold the amount of mussels you want to cook; beer (that’s pretty easy, right?), a good baguette and some waterproof matches or a lighter. That’s the bare minimum. Also be sure to check to see if you need a license to collect shellfish as this is a requirement in many states in the U.S. To ease the process, bring an onion, some garlic, a sharp knife, a roll of paper towels, paper plates and a bag of self-igniting charcoal—unless you plan on gathering wood for a fire and are sure you can find enough of it dry and ready to use. If you’re worried about finding a grill (or if you don’t want to build one from rocks) bring a small grill, too—and if you’re not sure there are mussels at the beach you’re headed for, there’s no shame in bringing store-bought mussels just in case.