Even if you don’t like clams, it might be worth it to buy a platter if you’re in New England. There, diners have been scoring rare quahog pearls.
“When I tasted this big round thing in my mouth. I’m thinking, ‘What the heck is this?’ So, I take it and spit it down on the table, in my hand, and my sister in-law says, ‘Is that a tooth?’” said Sandy Sikorski, a woman who found a pearl at Bridge Restaurant [Raw Bar] River Patio in Westerly, R.I.
Sikorski found the pearl in December 2021 while dining at the restaurant with her partner, Ken Steinkamp, according to WJAR. She went on to use it in her engagement ring.
“It’s been going well and we’re not getting any younger and we felt in a way that this was kind of a signal or an odd bit of synchronicity and we said, ‘This would be a great engagement ring and so it is,’” said Sikorski, who frequently dines at the restaurant with Steinkamp.
After she discovered that it was not a tooth, but a 9.8-millimeter pearl, Sikorski brought it to local jewelry shops. Marc Fishbone of Black Orchid Jewelers told her the pearl was a “Mercenaria pearl,” which can take years to grow. He estimated that this one took around five decades to reach its current size.
“Quahog pearls are non-nacreous pearls comprised of fibrous aragonite and organic matter. These pearls grow in Mercenaria mercenaria, a hard saltwater clam native to the New England coast. This species, commonly called the quahog, has a deep purple inner lip. The shells and pearls from this clam were once a form of currency among Native Americans in the region,” according to the International Gem Society.
It also said the pearls are “exceptionally rare” today due to mechanized clam harvesting methods.
According to Bonham’s auctions, it is “estimated that only one in 100,000 quahog clams actually produce a pearl of any kind and only one in 20 of those are even close to gem-quality.”
“He goes, ‘It’s probably one in a million, one in a million to have it perfect,’” said Sikorski of Fishbone’s assessment. “Usually, there’s pieces of them missing and it looks like a tooth or something. It is never like a whole perfect little oval. Plus, it’s big.”
Last summer, Scott Overland also found a rare purple quahog pearl while eating clams at a Delaware restaurant He joined Audacy’s “Something Offbeat” podcast to talk about it. Chef Brian Jupiter of Chicago’s Frontier restaurant also joined the show to discuss wild dining.
Steinkamp got down on one knee to present the couple’s pearl to Sikorski in a ring.
“It’s beautiful. It has diamonds and a sparkle and I know minerals are becoming more fashionable gemstones vs a big diamond thing,” she said.
The couple went back to the restaurant to celebrate their engagement.
“The more you think about it, it does become a more charming and romantic story,” said Steinkamp.
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