Mussels Grilled on Pine Needles

I call it the “pay dirt” moment—the satisfying realization that comes when you walk up to a grill or sit down at a restaurant and know that your hunch was correct, that your journey (in this case, a five-hour drive from Spain to France) was worth it; that you’ve come upon a remarkable, entirely new form of barbecue. The location was the Ile de Ré in the Charentes region. The dish in question was éclade, from the French verb éclore (to open, as a rosebud does), and it refers to