Shrimp, fish and shellfish on sale at Mac’s Seafood in Wellfleet, Massachusetts

On Cape Cod we find that little, thankfully, has changed since our last visit. There are rumours that Mac’s seafood bar has been taken over, and certainly our wizened steamer clams are a terrible disappointment. But then we find that the little necks and Wellfleets (clams and oysters to the uninitiated) on the half shell are as good as ever – and the lobster rolls and fries are still the fast food of the gods.

The real news on the Cape, bringing the whole place to a fever pitch of excitement, is the presence of the Obamas on holiday in neighbouring Martha’s Vineyard, the island just off Cape Cod.

We learn that the President and First Lady have had “a date night”, without daughters Sasha and Malia, at The Sweet Little Café in Oak Bluffs. “White House officials did not confirm what the couple had for dinner but both looked happy and well fed,” reported the Cape Cod Times, (but perhaps not as happy as the proprietor of the café would have been).

The Cape Cod Times has been running a competition asking readers to submit recipes of Cape Cod cuisine for the president’s delectation. “Presidential Potluck” is the headline: the more appealing entries include stuffed squash flowers (which turn out to be meatballs), clam brodetto and grilled bluefish with lemons.

My own experiments with blackened bluefish were problematic. Attempting to barbecue a magnificent thick fillet by torchlight, while also ensuring I did not miss out on my share of the Wellfleets that I had laboriously shucked previously, meant that the line between “blackened” and “burnt” was crossed even by Cajun standards. After some nifty work with a palette knife, the offending portion was removed and we served the rest of the succulent meat with a decent tomato salsa. The bluefish is a big, meaty fish, somewhere between a sea bass and a mackerel in texture and flavour, and sold absurdly cheaply in this land of cheap food.

Scanning the less appealing entries in the local recipe competition reminded me of how often many Americans turn to manufactured products for the sake of cooking convenience. Lobster is a shoo-in for a Cape Cod presidential dinner – they are also relatively cheap and plentiful here – but would you really want to offer (or eat) a lobster casserole in a sauce made with a quarter cup of flour, mushrooms, sherry, cheddar cheese and “one cup of Dreamfields (or other low carb) macaroni”?

Nor am I much tempted by a pineapple pie whose ingredients include a crust made with Graham crackers, a small can of crushed pineapple, a box of vanilla pudding/pie mix and a 16-ounce container of sour cream. Despite being unfamiliar with the tastes of the First Family, I would be hesitant about serving a slice of that to the president.

Being a president probably necessitates a certain paranoia about food safety. But it would be sad if that also meant that a president would not be allowed a runny omelette, a steak tartare, raw fish or, in particular, the wealth of shellfish that this little peninsula – or sand bar, as the geologists term it – has to offer.

I daresay clam meat would be allowed: clam chowders, stuffed quahogs – large clams whose meat is minced and mixed with breadcrumbs, a little chopped onion and chilli and then baked in the shell – and fried clams are all great dishes but I would have thought the whippet-thin presidential figure would be better preserved by a plate of clams on the half shell, without the dubious benefit of the cocktail sauce that is ubiquitously offered around these parts. Equally bothersome to the presidential digestion may have been the squadron of fishing boats from New Bedford that were stationed offshore at Oak Bluffs as a demonstration for better fishing rights for the Cape Cod fleet. To an outsider, it does seem that some of the fish here is too cheap – although it is regarded as expensive by American standards.

Visiting the wonderful fish market in Wellfleet to choose that night’s meal, I walked past bluefish, striped bass, salmon and halibut and baskets of steamer clams, little necks, green necks and oysters, alongside the huge lobster tanks. It would have been very easy to overlook the blue-black mussels sitting on the back of the slab.

But my wife had expressed a craving for this humble mollusc, so at the end of another exhausting day of walking, canoeing, swimming in pond and ocean and even a bit of golf, I prepared a simple feast. Mussels never tasted more succulent: for $15 (about £9), six of us dined liked kings – or presidents.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais.
More columns at www.ft.com/leigh

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Mussels with wine and cream

Some people complain that Basmati rice is difficult to cook: even they will find that simple boiling – after rinsing – works very well. Serves six.

Ingredients
2kg mussels
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
25g unsalted butter
450g Basmati rice
125ml dry white wine
100ml double cream
4 tbsp coarsely chopped parsley

Method
● Wash the mussels in plentiful changes of cold water, scraping the shells with a blunt knife (a long bladed oyster knife is ideal) and removing their beards. Chop the onion and garlic finely and melt the butter in a large and deep pot, large enough to hold all the mussels after they have opened. Sweat the onion and garlic gently in the butter for 10 minutes until soft but without colour. Wash the rice in several changes of cold water, drain and then drop into two litres of well-salted, boiling water. As soon as it is cooked – about nine minutes – drain the rice in a sieve and keep warm.
● Once the onion and garlic mixture has softened, add the mussels and the white wine, stir thoroughly and then cover with a well fitting lid. Shake the pan occasionally and check the progress of the mussels after three minutes, stirring with a spoon. As soon as they have all opened, drain into a colander over a large bowl and then strain the juice back into the casserole. Reduce well and then add the double cream and the coarsely chopped parsley and reduce again until the liquor thickens into a good sauce.
● Return the mussels to the pan, stir well and replace the lid just long enough to get the mussels hot again. Place a mound of rice into six soup bowls and pile the mussels and their sauce on top. Eat the mussels in your fingers and then spoon up the lavishly sauced rice afterwards.