The Portarlington Mussel Festival is an annual event that started in 2007. It was not until a few years ago that I learnt about it and wanted to go but one thing or another stopped us from actually going.
For this year's festival, I made sure I planned well in advance. The ferry tickets were booked 4 months ahead of time. When the weather forecast show it would be 35 degrees on the day, and the Port Phillip Ferries rescheduled our return leg home from 3pm to 5pm, I was in two minds to cancel our trip. I was apprehensive about spending the whole day in the sun outdoors at first, but it turned out to be a pretty good day.
We arrived at the dock opposite Marvel Stadium in Docklands to board the ferry at 8:30am and our ferry departed on time at 9am. It was full of people with people with beach gear, happy faces at the prospect of spending a day at the Festival, and the beach in the sun. There is a VIP line for those who spent $9 extra to include express entry into the Festival (entry fee $5 is payable at the entrance). There was no distinction in the boarding for the 'VIP' and 'non-VIPs' - both lines were admitted into the ferry at the same time. The entry into the Festival was also quite fast, because the Festival had just started and also because the volunteers manning the entrances were very efficient.
The calm, shimmering waters of Portarlington, the beautiful beach and pier greeted us as the ferry pulled into the dock. We spent some time on the pier looking at other tours available for an additional cost, like the winery tours and mussel farm tours but while we had eyes on the latter, it was not operational yet.
There were so many stalls in the Festival, it must be the largest I have ever attended. There were stalls selling hand crafted jewellery, art, prawn peelers, gardening products, knick knacks, paintings, clothes, sauces, food, fruits and everything you can think of. There were also stalls for community causes like the Coast Guard, the local Rotary and Lions club etc. There is a good balance between food stalls and other stalls.
There is no shortage of entertainment at the Festival. Besides browsing the many stalls, there are 3 stages each with fantastic line up of singers and performers. My favourite is the Bjorn Again, ABBA tribute band. There is also a tent for cooking demonstration by Rie's Kitchen, and an art exhibition/sale by local artists. Between the stalls, entertainment, cooking demonstration, art exhibition, the large playground for kids (it has a flying fox) and sampling the food from the food stalls, there was no time to be bored.
I discovered that there are at least two types of mussels, green lipped ones (commonly from NZ) and blue mussels, the ones farmed in Portarlington. I have only eaten the green lipped ones, which are meatier and tougher to chew. For that reason, I do not eat many mussels. The blue mussels are more tender, juicy, sweeter and is now my favourite. I was so taken by the taste that I bought some at the pier from Mr Mussels ($6 per kg) to bring home to Melbourne.
Some other fun facts I learnt:
1. Every mussel is a good mussel, except for those with broken shell and opened mussel that do not close with a hard tap (most likely dead mussel). Mussels that do not open after being cooked are perfectly good to eat.
2. Cook mussels in a cold empty pan for 5 minutes. Discard the juices from the mussels or better still, strain and reuse as stock. Then cook the sauce and toss the cooked mussels in the sauce.
3. There is no need to wash or scrub mussels, unless for presentation sake.
4. Mussels can be stored in the fridge up to a week, in single layer with a wet towel to cover.
5. The easy way to de-beard mussels is to do so after cooking, by pulling the beard towards the abductor muscle. I used to de-beard mussels before cooking but sometimes that does not get rid of all the beard, sometimes the stomach gets pulled out as well and thinking back, I would have caused the mussel extra pain before it is cooked.
6. The festival has the largest number of volunteers in the whole of Australia.
The trip to the festival was not only enjoyable, but very educational too!
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