Watercress is believed to be native to Asia Minor and to the Mediterranean area. As with most ancient plants, various myths and beliefs became attached to it. The ancient Persians were advised to feed it to their children if they wished to improve their growth. Since green leafy vegetables are excellent sources of vitamins and minerals, the advice probably was good. Xenophon, general and historian of the Green-Persian campaigns and Xerxes, Persian king, recommended watercress for their soldiers in the belief it would improve their health. The Greeks century writers of England recommended watercress as a remedy for scurvy, and they were right. Aside from the health idea, the Romans certainly had a good basis for serving watercress as a salad with garum (oil and vinegar) or with pepper, cumin seed and lentiscus (leaves of the mastic tree).
            An enterprising German, Nicholas Messinger, is reported as the first to cultivate watercress, in the middle of the 16th century at Erfurt. As popular as it is in England, it probably was not cultivated prior to 1800. It is reported that in 1808 a farmer near London began its cultivation for use as a salad plant. Watercress is highly prized by the Mohammedans of western India and Pakistan.
            It is not known when it was brought to this hemisphere but probably by early explorers. It quickly became naturalized and wide spread.

Blue mussels are native to the Pacific Northwest and they may be wild-gathered or farmed. You can tell them apart because wild mussels are rough, while farm raised mussels have a clean, smooth shell. Green mussels from New Zealand are larger. A relative newcomer is a Chilean variety, similar in appearance to eastern blue mussels.

There is only one mussel that’s been awarded the coveted AOC distinction in France. The mussels nurtured in the waters of the Mont St Michel bay are now more prized than ever after becoming the first seafood to be awarded the coveted French food quality ‘appellation’ label. After much lobbying by local producers, the bay’s bouchot mussels, as they are known, have been awarded the Appellation d’origine Controlee (AOC), more usually given to wines and other foods such as cheeses.

And producers are hoping the label will help end the growing, murky world of mussel fraud as from now on it will be an offence to call mussels produced anywhere else “moules de bouchot de la baie de Mont Saint Michel AOC”. Moules de bouchot are generally the most sought after mussels to be found on French market stalls, firstly because the species grown here is a medium sized bivalve with a distinctively firm, orange-yellow flesh.

The mussel season in France runs from July until November. Then there is also the bouchot effect — the tree trunk sized wooden piles driven into the seabed on which the bay’s distinctive bivalves are grown. Growing the mussels on the wooden pillars, or bouchot, means they are underwater at high tide, but exposed to the marine air when the sea recedes, which helps give them their distinctive flavor. New packaging technologies mean the bay’s bivalves are now turning up as far afield as Japan, where consumers are more used to eating wild mussels grown in China.

Mussel gathering is a tough job requiring physical strength and extreme concentration. The gatherers head out to sea to the wooden pillars in distinctive amphibious metal boats, which drive down the bay’s gently sloping seabed on large tractor-style wheels until the water is deep enough to float freely. Each bouchot contains around 80 kilos of cultivated mussels which must be carefully slid off their wooden pillars using a specially adapted mechanical arm attached to the boat. During the season running from July until November the fishermen generally harvest mussels from around 50 bouchots per trip, but at the peak in September, their boats can be weighed down with double that amount.

To clean mussels: Scrub them with a brush under cold water and scrape off any barnacles with a knife. If the byssus, or beard, is still attached (most cultivated mussels have been trimmed mechanically), remove it by pulling it from tip to hinge or pulling and cutting it off with your knife. Do this just before cooking. Discard any with cracked or open shells.

Glazing Vegetables

Vegetable cookery

• Purpose of cooking vegetables – to soften the cellulose
• Acid reaction – toughens fibers and dulls colors
• Vegetables are said to be done when the fiber has reached the appropriate texture, this varies according to the vegetable, and they should be al dente
• Strong flavored vegetables should be cooked for longer periods of time in more water to allow the strong flavors to cook off – generally parboiled
• Mild flavored vegetables cook for a shorter period of time in less water – generally blanched first then sautéed to reheat
• Glazing of vegetables – procedure

Cut vegetable in an appropriate size

Sweat onions in butter

Add vegetable and sweat

Cover item with stock

Cover with a false lid and cook in the oven- until fork tender

Remove and hold

Reduce stock until syrup like consistency

Toss vegetables in liquid to reheat