ON: THE BLUE MUSSEL MYTILUS EDULUS

If there was one species of animal that I would include on my family crest—if I had one—the beautiful, glistening Blue Mussel, just plucked from its bed and. encrusted with barnacles, squiggly tube worms, bits of green and brown sea weed—and with its  triangular, gracefully curved  blue-gray shell, still dripping with sea water, would be a prominent element of my imaginary escutcheon. 

Some of my contemporaries have built illustrious careers on the backs of wild animals.  They are legendary: Dianne Fossy made herself famous studying the mountain gorilla, Jane Goodall did it with chimps, Craig Packer is the world expert on African lions, and Gavin Maxwell (of “Ring of Bright Water” fame) made his mark with Scottish otters, etc., etc.  but who ever heard of Bob Kalin and Blue Mussels?  No one.  I attempt  to rectify that here below.

Sadly, or by the Fates, young Bob chose an animal hardly anyone could empathize with.  My future was sealed into anonymity when I was seduced at a very early age by…an invertebrate!   Yes these critters are the soft, slithery sort with no backbones often encountered when turning over a big stone on a beach at ebb tide.  These unassuming wrigglers simply do not have the same allure or inspire the interest which the higher beasts, such as those more closely allied to our own species. So right from the gate I was a late starter facing a heavy track. 

Now,  I’m not blaming the social status of the Blue Mussel in its scientific hierarchical ranking system for any of the twists and turns in my sinuous career route.  Those events can not be  attributed to a lowly invertebrate—which in some religious circles is even considered “unclean” and shunned as food.   However, after many years of intimate relations with this specie— my “totem” animal—one can not help but appreciate its singular and unique characteristics.  

This species is abounds  with ironic and unexpected characteristics.  For example, the seemingly common Blue Mussel (Mytilus edulus) has a stellar, nay regal connection—its genus name:  “Mytilus” which is derived from that of the 3rd century BC King Mytilus of Illyria who reigned over a City State on the shores of the Adriatic Sea in what is now modern day Albania.  The species name, edulus is Latin and simply records that it was known as highly edible and desirable . .

This species belongs to the Phylum Mollusca (Gr: μύλος = soft bodied), but ironically, its most distinguishing characteristic is its hard calcareous shell. Recently is has been designated as belonging to Class “Bivalvia” (meaning = having two calcareous shells joined by a hinge).  Most zoologists continue to place the mussel in the Class Pelecypoda (Greek: πέλεκυς =“hatchet,  πόδι = foot”) but its “foot” does not serve as a ”hatchet, or look like one at all.  In fact, its  well developed (but not too muscular)“foot” is not used  for locomotion —it can not walk—this critter is officially sessile (attached and stationary)   But paradoxically unlike most sessile organisms—it can detach itself and move from one location to another,  Its foot does have glands which produce a sticky fluid which upon contact with sea water harden into strong “byssus” threads—so characteristic of mussels—but more of that later.  The mussel  also has a nervous system and collection of nervous tissue one could call a“brain”, but this unusual animal has  no head.  And like a fish, it has gills—but which are only secondarily used for respiration.

Its bluish-purple shell is its most distinctive characteristic.  The shape is a of a rounded triangular form and the two half shells are held together by hinge. The shell interior is smooth and covered with a glossy “nacreous” iridescent layer.  The interior of both half-shells are marked with a prominent round scar where the powerful closing muscle (the adductor muscle ) is—or was— attached.     Once the shell is removed the soft body of the Mytilus is exposed making it apparent why this animal is included in the Mollusca. 

The soft body is completely encased in a brownish-colored thin layer of tissue termed the “mantle”.  The mantle has the ability to secrete a layer  of aragonite mineral (a variety of calcium carbonate) which produces the shell. But this secretion occurs only at the very periphery of the mantle.  As the animal grows within the mantle—this organ simply adds new shell material along the “lips” to keep the shell growing at the same rate as the animal enclosed within.  The growth rate is not continuous or regular.  The animal grows slower an,  in the winter and faster in the spring and summer.  Thus the shell  shows growth lines similar to a tree’s annual rings but are not strictly ”annual” 

The mantle also produces a smooth, pearly inner layer called the nacreous layer which  gives the inner surface of the shell its attractive smooth, irridescent surface.  If a small grain of sand or a tiny shell fragment  happens to get caught between the mantle and the shell, the mantle responds by covering this irritant over with a thin layer of inner shell material to protect the mantle from irritation.  These little smooth nacreous covered particles can sometimes grow quite large (to several millimeters). These are the “pearls” of the mussel.  Some are very attractive.  

The mussel’s gills are well adapted to filter tiny particles of food suspended in the seawater.  It is claimed that Mytilus is able to filter as much as 25 liters (almost 7 gallons) of water per day.  In the process of feeding they help clean the water.  The particles of plankton and other organic materials are moved along by the gills into to its mouth.  Tiny cilia on the gills direct the food toward the mussels’ mouth.  (The tiny Pea Crab -about as big as a pencil eraser—lives among the gills. They survive there by sharing the food the mussel filtered out of the sea. water.  One study of mussel growth does suggest that mussels infested with Pea crabs do not grow as well as ones not infected.)

In regard to the mouth of the mussel, please remember this critter has no head—so its mouth is dangerously close to the distal end of its digestive system—its anus.  Another oddity, It does not open its shell for ingestion—to eat. The adductor muscle keeps it closed tightly. It draws in and filters sea water, through a siphon (like a straw) fashioned from its mantle.

For all intents and purposes mussels are immobile, strapping themselves to the sea bed or pilings with thin sticky protein threads, like Prometheus chained to the rock.  The threads —we called them “beards”—are known as byssus threads (Greek for “fine yellow linen fabric”).  Though,  oddly with all these “promethean chains“ attached firmly to the sea bed,  a mussel can still adjust its position and actually move  around to repositon itself in the bed a small degree using the byssus threads as pulleys and drag lines.

And like Prometheus chained to its rock the mussel gave to man a great gift. It presented to man itself a delectable food. And that is how the mussel and I first became acquainted. 

My earliest and most pleasant recollections of this species of Phylum Mollusca, Class Pelecypoda (Bivalvia) was as a child mussel gatherer.  My grandfather,, a native of Bari on the  Italian, Adriatic coast, was, as are alll those who hail from that area of Italy, a connoisseur of shellfish. (King Mytilus lived on the opposite eastern shore of this sea).  Grandpa came to beach always prepared  to enjoy the abundant shellfish. On each foray he carried a tattered grey canvas tote bag from which poked the long crusty heel of a “bastone”-loaf of Italian bread. Within the bag one would find an ancient bone-handled pocket knife (the blade was rusted open) and always ”il lemone”, that fragrant Mediterranean fruit, the juice of which was essential for seasoning a raw clam, oyster or mussel—And is a child needed medication to sooth bee sting or to disinfect a knee scrape—the lemon was ready..   But an important tradition Grandpa insisted on was that that each grandchild had to eat at least one mussel on the half-shel with a squeeze of fresh lemon and a crust of bread.  

 On our summer family jaunts to the beaches on Long Island’s north shore in the 1950s  my young cousins and I were lured to the beach on a warm summer day expecting a refreshing swim in the clear blue waters of Long Island Sound—only to find that we most often arrived at ebb (low) tide—and rather than splashing and swimming in the foamy surf we were going to be put to work as shellfish gatherers.  Each was presented with a round wood-lath basket wedged  in the inner tube (with multiple colored patches) of an automobile tire.  Then we were directed out into the shallows to collect mussels.  Some of my cousins, having earlier experiences claimed illness, sore feet, or deep fears of crab-bitten toes, as well as cuts and scrapes on sharp, barnacle-encrusted rocks.  The girls got away with this more often,  but the boys more often had to brave the cold water and suppress their fear of the unseen crabs and imaginary threats to feet and legs.  Some with their baskets only nominally filled scuttled back to shore—often a good hundred feet away.   But I, no braver, but more curious and  fascinated with the panoply of diverse critters, so enjoyed the experience I persisted even ignoring the barnacle scrapes and water=wrinkled hands. Not always following directions exactly to Grandpas’ specifications about filling my basket—but I did work hard at discovery. 

In the waist deep water a few hundred feet off the beach on the sandy bottom we would encounter the well-camouflaged Calico Crab, an occasional swift-swimming Blue Crab, and I partly hidden among the waving sea lettuce, Irish moss, filmy red algae and brown rock weed—there were the banks of dark, blue/black mussels. The tight lipped dark shells, encrusted with barnacles, and tied to the bottom and to each other  with their tough byssus threads lay among the sea lettuce and rock weed spotted with barnacles and marked up with the white hieroglyphs of sea-worm tubes. Our water-wrinkled hands reached down, parting the algae with our faces close enough to the sea water so that little waves splashed to tease our lips with its salt.   We tugged at the biggest mussel we would could see through the undulating surface and pulled it others with it up. When the clump broke the surface,  its came alive  with tiny fluttering wriggling crustaceans copepods and amphipods which squirmed and slithered frantically back into the sea, and others which retreated among the adhering barnacles and patches of green sea weed.  

The mussel clumps had to be pulled up and then the individual mussels separated and dumped into the basket. This process often revealed larger Crustacea like sand shrimp, wriggling Blood Worms and the beautiful, red-legged polychete Sand Worm with its  curved large black fangs that could bite a kid’s finger. All these fascinating critters would tumble into the floating basket.  Most would settle down among the catch and then escape through the wood crevices back into the seawater.  There they would drift down to the sand bottom to wriggle or swim away among the waving sea lettuce and rock weed.. 

On occasion a pipefish—closely related to the sea horse would come up with a mussel clump More often we would pull up the face legged red star fish.  I never failed to turn these animals of the Phylum Echinodermata (spiny skinned) to watch with amazement the thousands of little foot- siphons sucking eagerly for water on the undersides of their “legs”.  I did try to throw them far from the mussel beds because it was with this thousands of sucking feet they they eventually opened the tightly closed shell of the mussel—extruded their stomach into its shell and ate the poor mussel in its own shell.   

There was so much life among those mussel beds! 

Once I stepped on a big slippery summer flounder buried in the fine sand between clumps of mussel beds. It wiggled energetically and then slippery—it erupted from under my foot to swim off and disappear. Another time a big Tautog (Blackfish) dashed out from among the waving greens as I reached down to part  them and swam away in a puff of sand to bury itself in a more distant clump of sea weed.  

Soon the baskets were full and the mussel gathering kids all waded to shore.  On the way we felt with or are feet in the sandy patches  for the occasional hardshell clam of even better, according to grandpa,  the tall bulge of a buried  Busycon or Channled Whelk—he called it a “scungilii”— and favored it for its flavor and size among the many others shellfish we collected.. 

On the beach, the baskets were emptied next to a large rock or a wave and sand smoothed log which had floated up on shore  and the entire family got busy cleaning the beautiful blue mussels of their encrustations of sea life in anticipation of the feast to come at home.  Grandpa was very particular about this.  The mussels had to be completely cleaned of all encrustations.  

In the 1950s on Long Island’s North Shore the local residents all favored the Quahog or hardshell clam, the steamer clam or the oyster.  No one knew that the beautiful Blue Mussel was edible.  Grandpa liked it that way.  So we had instructions to respond to the question (“Say what do you do with those? Are they edible?”) posed by locals who might stroll by while we were on the beach happily cleaning our catch: we were instructed to say:  My response was:  ”No” (I often smiled here as if the query was a really dumb  one. ) “NO. WE USE THESE FOR FISH CHUM—we crank em up and throw em over the side of the boat”. That last seemed to satisfy my questioners—it seemed rational and fit in with their preceptions. So everyone was happy.

I hated to lie. I think I was.more offended to besmirch the reputation of our lovely mussels than the telling an untruth.  These folks believed us.  Fortunately for Grandpa—mussels did not become a popular shellfish food until decades later.  

A good fifteen years later, I remembered that untruth I told about the edibility of Mytilus edulus when I was working in New York City for a publishing house as a science copy editor.  To celebrate a successful series publication the owner of our company invited all of his small editorial staff out to dinner in a swanky Italian Restaurant.  There, our very sophisticated boss recommended that we all try the fabulous shellfish on the menu that night. The great platter came out with fanfare —and to my surprise—there in all its encrusted glory was my Blue Mussels—this time slathered in a fragrant and tasty tomato sauce.  All my colleagues eagerly dig in—licking  their fingers and making their lips sla over a shell fish I once claimed were inedible and used for bait.  Grandpa would not have appreciated the fact that the mussels seemed to have come from the sea to the plate with very little attention at scrubbing the shells clean of encrustation.   No one seemed to notice.

What an introduction to invertebrate zoology I was so lucky to have had at such an early age. The fascination with the sea shore and its creatures has never left me—or abated or the taste of a nice plump mussel just freshly picked from the sea.  

So as well as these unusual characteristics that attracted me and forged my life long relationship with the Blue Mussel (Mytilis edulus)—it is also a highly desired and delectable food source.  It is eaten raw, baked on the half shell (my favorite), cooked in sauces, in paellla, smoked, dried, salted, etc. etc.  But I must add even beyond its attraction as a food it has also been a source of recreation, curiosity and and satisfying discovery for much of my life.  

But in my professional life—there were no mussels to ponder or study.

Besides being beautiful and a gustatory treat, the Blue Mussel is—like all of us Americans —an immigrant species. It must have arrived here attached by its unique byssal threads—we called them “its beard” the strong strands of thread each with a little circular patch where it adheres to a rock, piling, other mussel, or sea bed —these must have attached this Adriatic Sea and European native to the wormy and barnacle encrusted hull of every Old World vessel while in their  home port and then hitched  a long sea voyage —happily feeding and growing on the months-long sea voyage. In the New World it its juveniles settled here on North American rocks. 

As a professional archeologist working most of my career on prehistoric sites on Long Island I have dug numerous coastal Prehistoric Native American sites, but never once came upon a single  mussel shell—among the myriad of shells easily observed in the sometimes massive prehistoric shell mounds. In these site the Quahog, soft shell, Credipula, jacknife or razor clams and others all were apparently collected and avidly eaten by the Algonquian natives, who resided for thousands of years along our shores—there were no mussels. (At least on Long Is;and)  As a food source the Blue Mussel was easier to exploit,-no digging necessary— with more fat and protein per kilogram of live weight, and better tasting than some of the critters that were exploited.  So like other immigrants the Blue Mussel may have arrived with the Pilgrims or perhaps the Norsemen—but were not here for the aboriginal early Americans of Long Island from Montauk to western bays of Long Island Sound.