I love to set a big bowl of freshly-steamed mussels down in the middle of a dinner party and watch what happens. Some guests dive in with gleeful abandon while the shellfish newbies hang back to see how it's done. Either way, soon everyone is grabbing mussels from the bowl, slurping from the shells, and fighting over the last chunks of bread to sop up the sauce. It's a happy, playful, messy scene that never fails to get the party going.
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