A couple out celebrating their anniversary at their favourite restaurant got more than they bargained for when a clam in their appetiser dish came with a genuine pearl inside.
Maria and Michael Spressler were dining out at The Lobster House in Cape May, New Jersey, in the US, on their 34th anniversary - as had been their annual tradition since 1987 - when they made the lucky find.
Michael said the last clam in their usual appetiser had felt a little different than the others.
Speaking about the meal on President’s Day weekend, he said he had been down to the 12th one, which he had picked up on the fork.
It had seemed a bit heavier than usual, he said, but he didn’t think anything of it.
But when he started to eat it, he realised something was in his mouth.
“I actually thought one of my teeth broke,” he told local news outlet KYW-TV .
Lucky for Michael, he was mistaken, with the object in his mouth actually being a pearl.
“He’s eaten dozens and dozens of clams and we’ve never found anything like that so it was pretty exciting,” Maria said.
While the 8.8 millimetre pearl could be worth thousands of dollars, the couple did not plan to sell it.
Instead, Maria said she would like to have it set into a nice piece of jewellery.
“It’s a beautiful remembrance of that day and what we have is so special,” she said.
The restaurant shared the news about the lucky find on social media, and cleared up a common misconception - that pearls only came from oysters.
“Both (oysters and clams) produce pearls,” they wrote, adding that mussels do too. “It’s the bivalve’s reaction to debris or grit.”
Sarah Stadnicar, a Lobster House employee, said she had never seen anything like it herself.
“I have worked here for around 10 years now and I’ve never heard of someone finding one in one of our oysters or clamshells,” she said.
