Mussels and Moules

I bought a kilo of fresh sea mussels on the Ile d'Oléron. They travelled in two cool bags within my cool box with ice which was still ice the following day in my fridge! 
Moules marinières recipe:
Chop a red onion or shallots and garlic. Gently sauté in butter. Add chopped parsley or if you have none, dried parsley and if pushed use rosemary and sage as I did.  Add a quantity of water, white wine, pepper, salt and bring to the boil. Add the washed mussels... mine didn't have any beards to remove. This must have been done in the harvesting process! All mine were closed.  Stir the mussels in the sauce. Put a lid on the pan! When they have cooked for ten minutes in the sauce, if there are any closed ones, they are discarded. Pour the mussels and juice into a large bowl and enjoy eating using an empty shell as pincers!!!!!
REMINDER: 
1. Discard all open mussels before cooking; discard all closed mussels after cooking! 
2. Don't eat mussels if you have been ill eating shellfish; probably you have an allergy to them! 
I couldn't eat all the sauce and mussels so they stayed in the fridge overnight. I washed the empty mussel shells with boiling water which extracted herbs and onions.  In that liquid I  slowly cooked risotto rice and some sliced carrots and at some point added the mussel sauce, again cooked slowly and this risotto was delicious for another day

The Common blue mussel (Mytilus edulis - Linneaus family: Mytildae, 1758)) is the most commonly farmed mussel species.  Bouchot means a 'shellfish bed'. It is a traditional aquaculture technique for harvesting mussels. The mussel is grown on ropes strung from wooden poles in the sea, which results in grit and barnacle-free mussels with a good flavour.  A rope-grown blue mussel is a bouchot mussel in France. According to legend, Patrick Walton, a Scotsman, ran aground in the bay d’Aiguillon, Normandy in 1235. He stayed and hunted seabirds as he had done in Scotland.  He drove wooden poles into the ground near the coast and stretched nets between.  Mussels began growing on the pole. He realized it was more profitable to raise shellfish. Normandy remains the leading producer of bouchot mussels.  In France, bouchot mussels are protected by Appelation Protection d'Origine status.