Mussels in Cream

Mussels in cream are a pot of live mussels steamed open in white wine with shallot and garlic, the cooking liquor then enriched with cream and parsley and poured back over the shells. The dish belongs to the whole Atlantic seaboard: in France it is moules à la crème and a Normandy standard alongside moules marinière, in Belgium it is one of the dozen preparations a mussel house lists, and in Ireland, where rope-grown mussels from Bantry Bay, Killary Harbour and the Donegal coast supply most of Europe, it is the usual way a pub or seafood bar serves a kilo bowl with brown bread or chips. The cream version is a step up from marinière in richness and a step down in purity, and it exists because the liquor the mussels release is so good that a spoon of cream turns it into a sauce without any other work.