What do you love now, that you hated when you were younger?
As a boy, and certainly from about eleven to seventeen, there is absolutely no way I would have eaten mussels. The very idea of oysters, mussels or winkles made me squeamish (indidnt like gooseberries either and still don’t).
This changed when I was hitching through France with some French teenagers. We were south of Arcachon, by the Atlantic, and bought fresh mussels from a stall on the beach. They were simply prepared in a white wine and garlic broth.
I remember the shock of it. They weren’t rubbery or fishy as I had imagined. They melted in my mouth. The broth was garlicky, salty, fragrant, and delicious, and the mussels tasted of the sea.
It was one of those small conversions that stays with you. Something I would once have refused without hesitation became, in a single mouthful, something I have loved ever since.
Olivier’s father, my French friend I hitched with between La Rochelle and Andora, had an oyster farm: I had to try those too!
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