Cooking Sustainably with Mussels
After fleeing prewar France with her American employers, Clementine and the Beck family settle along the New England coast. As the central character in Samuel Chamberlain’s book Clementine in the Kitchen, the Burgundian cuisinier struggles to adjust to her new environment. One day as she cycles along the coast near her new home, she looks at the ocean and is amazed and “livid with excitement.” She rushes home and announces “J’ai trouve de moules! De quantites des moules!” She “has found mussels! Lots of mussels!” Clementine is overjoyed that such expensive French delicacy litters the American shoreline.