Most for your money cookbook

Let them lie in fresh water to discharge any sand, then wash and scrub the shells. Pull off the hanging tendrils before cooking and discard the very visible little black beards before eating. STEAMED MUSSELS (i) -Steam and serve like clams, with a cup of the broth beside each plate and a dish of melted butter in which to dip each mussel. Or, (2) simmer a chopped onion, with perhaps a bit of garlic, in Yi tablespoons of oil or butter, but do not let it color; add a cut-up tomato, and simmer; add an herb bouquet (see recipe under Season It!) and i}4 cups boiling water and simmer until well blended. Pour the mussels into the pan, cover closely, and steam until they open; continue to steam for 5 minutes longer; take mussels from shells, place in a hot dish and pour liquid over. The broth may be used at one meal for soup, like clam broth, and the steamed mussels may appear at another, reheated in a cream sauce made with half milk, or cream, and half mussel liquor. They may also be fixed h la Newburg, or be done into fritters, or croquettes. Cold, they make a very good salad: Drain well, mix with thinly sliced celery, and then with mayonnaise or salad dressing, and serve on lettuce leaves. PICKLED MUSSELS Take steamed mussels from shells, lay them in a dish with a chopped onion, a chopped carrot, a bit of garlic, half a dozen peppercorns, salt, a dash of cayenne and a clove or two. Pour over them a very little olive oil, and shake the dish until all are well settled together. Then cover with a mixture of half vinegar and half mussel broth. Let stand 3-4 hours. Serve in the mussel shells, one or two pickled mussels in each half shell, scattering over them a little of the onion and carrot drained out of the pickling liquor. BAKED MUSSELS Steam the mussels, leave each one lying on a half shell. Mix into a lump of butter all the minced parsley and chives it will take. Spread a teaspoonful of the mixture on each mussel and place in oven or under grill until sputtering hot. A layer of coarse salt in the bottom of the pan, to imbed the shells, will keep them steady and level so that the butter does not spill while heating, and will hold the heat when they are brought to the table in the pan. FRIED MUSSELS Drain and dry steamed mussels; discard beards; season with pepper and a very little salt. Roll in egg and then in crumbs, and quickly brown in fat. Serve with quartered lemon. MUSSEL CHOWDER Steam mussels and proceed as with clam chowder, using the mussel broth for cooking the chowder and adding the mussels at the end. CLAMS Soft clams not only have a thinner shell than hard ones, but have a larger proportion of soft meat inside of them. The tough muscle called the "neck" of both hard-shell, Little Necks and soft-shell steamers is really a foot by which the creatures propel themselves, and since the shells open to extend this foot they often close abruptly, especially when the clams are alarmed by diggers, and thus take in considerable sand. So they should be allowed to lie in cold water for several hours to give them a chance to expel not only sand but any other extraneous matter they may have picked up. They will make more of an effort to do this if some cornmeal is sprinkled into the water for them to eat. CLAM CHOWDER