Quahog Pearls for Dinner
Tue, Oct 04, 2022
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Pearl Blog
When I want to read up on pearls, I enjoy checking the news! I'm loving the article about the mysterious purple pearl find... and I love knowing the full story, even if the reporter doesn't!
Y'all know, people have been eating pearls for centuries! And, no, that is not a typo! However, people are not intentionally eating pearls. What I really mean is that people have been eating mollusks for as long as food has been harvested from the ocean. And every once in a while... a treasure is found! This is how pearls were first discovered.. while eating!
A Pennsylvania couple found a treasure while feasting on clams in Lake Worth, Florida. All they know is they found a pearl while eating clams and it ends up the pearl is worth quite a bit of money!
Woo hoo!
There is a lovely little clam, the Quahog, that is found up and down the eastern shores of North America. Quahogs have been found as far north as Canada and down to the southern tip of Florida. These clams are very common and provide the clam meat for baked and steamed clams and chowders.
And this couple found a purple quahog pearl!
But they are not the only people from Pennsylvania who found a quahog. Which reminds me, didn't the billion dollar Mega Millions winner come from Pennsylvania, too? There must be something about Pennsylvania!!
Another couple found a quahog pearl in their food while dining on the Delaware coast in August.
They were surprised to find their clams were served with a bell pepper garnish. So surprised, they almost sent the dish back to the kitchen. But, then they spotted something that looked like Dots candy in their dish. Did the chef drop something, they wondered?
What I love about this article is the couple said, “As we were looking at the shell, we saw this little indentation on the shell, inside the clam where it was growing, so we figured it was probably something from inside the clam.”
This is exactly how natural pearls grow! They can cause indentation in the shell and sometimes the shells look like they have some type of deformation. It takes alot of the shell's nacre to form a natural pearl.
This purple dot wasnt candy, it was a beautiful, rare purple quahog pearl. So, rare, in fact, it is tough to put a value on quahogs. But one appraiser put its value around $4000.
Quahogs come in a variety of purple colors and they can also be white or beige.
Like most commercial fisheries, these clams are sometimes cleaned and shucked mechanically so many pearls could get lost and destroyed.
But, when you find one, it is quite a treasure! This Pennsylvania couple decided to keep their treasure! Great choice!
Love,
India
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