The mussels you cook in a wine sauce and the muscles you use to lift the pot from the stove derive their names from the same source: the Latin musculus, which literally means little mouse. The ancient Romans bestowed this word on the small, grey shellfish because its size and colour resembles that of a mouse; they likewise bestowed the word upon the fibrous tissue that allows us to lift things because some muscles, such as the biceps, resemble a scurrying mouse as they move back and forth under the skin when successively flexed and relaxed. Both mussels and muscles have long been eaten as food, but so has the mouse: the ancient Romans bred a specific kind of mouse—the dormouse—so that they could stew them and eat them with sauce made of honey and poppy seeds; even in the seventeenth century, dormouse pie was still eaten in France. The dor of dormouse probably derives from the Latin dormire, meaning to sleep, the animal having achieved an almost proverbial reputation as a sound slumberer; for a similar reason, the Dutch once called another sort of rodent the slaep-ratte, a name needing no translation. Of these words, mouse is the oldest, first being recorded in the ninth century; mussel appeared in the eleventh century, dormouse in the fifteenth, and muscle in the sixteenth.
A delicate cotton textile, featuring a relatively porous texture, frequently employed as a sieve cloth for straining fruit preserves, as well as in analogous culinary tasks. In these contexts, a white muslin variant is invariably utilized.
Presenting a distinctive greenish-black bivalve mollusk, the subject at hand is none other than the esteemed mussel. While indulging in this delectable delicacy, utmost caution must be exercised during the gathering process, ensuring that mussels are sourced from reputable origins, as there are instances where they may be deemed unsuitable for consumption. It is of paramount importance that the mussels acquired are alive and thriving at the time of purchase. Pay careful attention to any mussels with shells that are wide open, as this signifies that the inhabitant within has met its untimely demise, rendering them unfit for culinary purposes.