Do you have to de beard a muscle?!
Answers: I plan on cooking them again and found de-bearding very hard. I really struggled to get it out. Can I just leave in?
The beards are really unpleasent to eat. I founf that if you use a towel to grab the beard it come off the mussel pretty smoothly.
Do it after they're cooked. Just grab and pull and yes you should, it's just making extra work/disgustingness to your guests if you don't. You wouldn't want to bite into that would you?
Pull the sucka beard out when your washing them off! For gosh sakes, buy mussels, grown on a rope..clean, big..ones at Giant Eagle..$ 5.00 lb frozen, cleaned so sweet and tastey!