‘Salty and soft, like a praline’: will Belgium’s national dish finally feature homegrown mussels?

Moules frites are a staple, but the majority of the shellfish eaten in the country are imported. Previous attempts to farm them have foundered - but a bumper harvest this year suggests the delicate' Belgian mussel is here to stay

It is harvest day at the Westdiep sea farm and the crew are bringing their haul on to the boat: 12-metre long ropes laden with clusters of blue mussels. Bobbing on the water just three nautical miles off the Belgian coast, the four-man crew on the little red Smart Farmer use a crane to hoist the ropes on deck. The mussels go on to a steel conveyor belt, straight into the declumper", a machine that will break up bunches of molluscs into smaller groups.

It may look like a typical late summer scene on the Belgian North Sea coast, but the mussel harvest is a novelty. Although Belgium is renowned for its moules frites, it has long struggled to cultivate the shellfish for its national dish on a commercial scale. Of the estimated 20,000 tonnes of mussels Belgium consumes each year, most are imported from Zeeland in the Netherlands.