belgian roulette.

Pictured above: the last truffle shavings over eggs and shrimp.

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I'm conducting an interesting/stupid experiment tonight. Mostly stupid, but I guess possibly interesting for being so.

I bought a couple of kilos of mussels at the Dirk yesterday, as I've been doing every couple weeks this winter. For the first time ever, there was a rather terrible smell when I opened the package, something like a wet dog corpse probably.

Out of morbid curiosity and a not-insignificant sense of frugality, I dumped the mussels in the sink, discarded any half-shells or broken mussels, and soaked the remainder in cold, cold tap water for 5 minutes. Just to see what would happen. After draining them, they didn't stink at all.

Here's my experiment: they always say that one bad mussel can make you dreadfully ill. Of course I believe them, because I've been made dreadfully, apocalyptically ill by shellfish before. But I guess that was a long time ago, because I'm ready to chance it again: if I've removed the most suspicious suspects, and all of my remaining mussels appear healthy before cooking, am I still in danger?

Let's find out. For lunch today I cooked all of them and ate 5 of them. The rest I removed from their shells and put in the fridge just in case I don't die. Stay tuned!

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AND? I lived. And then I ate half of the remaining mussels the next day and survived again. Lesson learned? Yes...mussels are not especially enjoyable when you're really suspicious about their toxicity.

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