Walking around in the mud on the riverbed, you will harvest loaches, and if you're lucky, you can step on a turtle, but the most rewarding is undoubtedly the mussels. I remember when I was a kid, I stepped on dozens of mussels at one time at the most, these mussels are big and small, different shapes, some are round, some are oval, but you have to be careful when stepping on the mussels, because there may be glass shards in the silt, and when you step on the mussels, you need to be skillful in snapping them out of the silt.
The mussels, which make their home in the mud, are firmly anchored in the deeper layers of the mud and require a lot of effort to snap them out, and the edges of the mussels are very sharp, so you can cut your hand if you cut through them too hard.
While every time we go to step on the mussels will be full of harvest, but we take it home will rarely go to eat, usually are fed to the family's chickens and ducks and other poultry. But in fact, the mussels are still very high in nutritional value, its meat contains protein, fat, calcium, iron and a variety of vitamins.
Since mussels have nutritional value, why do so few people eat them?
Let's talk about this question from four aspects.
The environment of mussels
The environment of mussels is one of the main reasons why many people are reluctant to eat mussels. Mussels is a collective term for all mollusks of the family Musselidae that live in freshwater, and there are currently more than 600 different species of mussels around the world, which mainly inhabit rivers, lakes, streams, and swampy environments.
As a mollusk, the mussel can only move by its axopods, which are its locomotor organs. The mussel moves by reaching out and touching other objects with its axe-feet to create a force, which limits the mussel to the bottom of a body of water.
But, rely on the axe foot to hunt, then think too much, because the axe foot can only make the mussels move very slowly, and its speed is even comparable to the sloth, so the mussel's prey is just some protozoa and organic debris, these prey in the silt of the bottom of the water is more dense, so the mussels will usually set themselves into the silt, and then open the "mouth!
It is because of this habit that the mussels we catch are usually "dug" out of the silt, which is very dirty in our mind, so many people think that the mussels are very dirty, resulting in the abandonment and not eat.
The taste of mussels
When I started stepping on mussels when I was a child, I couldn't help but think about the taste, so I ate mussels when I was a child. I remember one time, a big reservoir west of our village basically dried up, adults and children go down to catch fish, touch mussels, I was lucky, just went down for a while and touched a about 30 centimeters long a pleated crown mussels. Pleated crown mussels is one of our most common mussels, it is a relatively large size in the mussels, the whole irregular triangle, the biggest feature is the shell above the obvious coarse wrinkles, in the shell on the top side of the stretch out of a huge crown, the following picture:
Then touched the big mussels many people came to the crowd, in order to prevent the night long dream, I also do not continue to touch it, and hurriedly brought back home, because I heard one person say: "This is so big, I'm not sure if I can do it. Because I heard one person say: such a big clam inside may have a pearl. As a result, I took home with a shovel to pry open found nothing, after thinking so big mussels to chickens and ducks to eat waste, begged my mother to give me stew, originally thought it was a fresh river food, wait until you put into the mouth when you find out how difficult to eat.
First of all, it is fishy, that fishy than fish to fishy several times, followed by the texture, originally thought that the tender mussels not to say that it is melting in the mouth, at least it should also be relatively soft and sticky, the result is like rubber bands like chewing can not be rotten, chewing fishy in the mouth while bursting, which is now unforgettable, since then, mussels have become the exclusive of the chickens and ducks, I never ate again.
I think mussels are not very popular even in rural areas where there was a shortage of meat to eat, and it must have a lot to do with its fishy flavor and the fact that it is difficult to chew the meat.
The audience of mussels
In the river, there are many animals that have a wide audience, such as river shrimp and small fish, which are rare delicacies, but why is it that mussels have a smaller audience in the same environment? In addition to the fact that mussels live in the mud, there are two other reasons:
The first is that mussels, except in the dry season, we can get relatively easy, the other seasons are difficult to get, because they live at the bottom of the water body; second, mussels in ancient times was considered a "cold thing", such as in the "Materia Medica
Sweet, salty, cold, non-toxic.
See, although there is no toxicity of mussels, but its "cold" characteristics will be some of the weak spleen and stomach people excluded, and as a "river food", some people eat mussels may be allergic to, which will also be part of the people dissuaded.
Mussel meat
A 20-centimeter-long mussel opened inside the meat at first glance is very much, but in fact, can be eaten in too few parts, theoretically only its axe foot is edible, the other parts do not try to eat, why do you say so? Let's take a brief look at the body structure of mussels.
The internal structure of the mussel consists of the axe foot, the visceral mass and the gills, in which the visceral mass is at the back of the axe foot, connected to the axe foot, which includes the stomach, digestive glands, intestines, heart and other parts of the stomach, digestive glands, intestines, heart and other parts of the visceral mass, which is connected together to form a visceral mass, due to the fact that there are a lot of protozoa in the viscera as well as sludge, so it is best to try not to eat it.
As for its gills also play a filtering role, also try not to eat, so that only the axe foot, a 20 cm long mussels can really eat the axe foot only a few centimeters long, if you want to get together a plate, at least a dozen mussels to be able to, although the number of not a problem, but prying open, cleaning these are more laborious, so there are few people eat.
A lot of mussels have become a thing of the past after the river dried up
Rivers and reservoirs have dried up in the silt in a large number of mussels has become a thing of the past, nowadays in the silt in addition to some of the garbage, there are only sporadic mussels, so since very few people eat mussels, these mussels, why is there less of it? There are two main reasons:
First: pollution. In our childhood, digging a small sand pit on the river beach, a moment will overflow water, these water can even drink, but in today's world, needless to say the water in the wild body of water, even if it is the well water has been very difficult to swallow, which is caused by water pollution. Water pollution is mainly caused by garbage and sewage, in the garbage in addition to some domestic garbage, there are some pesticide pollution, in many places I have seen more than once on the riverbank there are some used up pesticide bottles, these bottles once into the river water, just the residue on the inner wall will be enough for aquatic creatures to drink a pot.
While mussels grow in the "dirty" silt, it does not mean that they can survive in the sewage, in fact, not only the mussels, but also the once small shrimp, small crabs, scuds, small fish are becoming less and less.
Second: drought. I do not know the partners found no, today's droughts come more often than when we were children, many in our country as a child has not dried up the water body, now many have dried up. Although mussels are able to survive away from water in the silt, once the silt dries up, they are only dead.
And today's droughts and other extreme weather actually have a lot to do with the increase in the greenhouse effect, which, in addition to causing increased glacier melting, also changes the weather, making some extremes more likely.
Written in the end
Mussels are one of the childhood memories of many small friends, although it is not delicious, but in the past also brought endless joy to small children. Of course, mussels are actually not poisonous, it is also edible, only for various reasons, not many people like to eat mussels.
Today, due to pollution and drought, even if you want to eat wild mussels, it is not necessarily still waiting for you.