If you dream of finding a pearl in an oyster, here's where to buy your treasure trove

Mathilde Bourge | 9/4/23

A young man from Normandy recently found a small pearl in an oyster. And surprise, surprise, he's not the first to have made this discovery, according to the producer...

Who hasn't dreamed of finding a pearl while eating good oysters? This extremely rare phenomenon, which only happens about once in 10,000, has just happened in France, in Normandy to be precise. While the lucky man still can't believe it, the oyster farmer who sold the oyster is even more astonished, because this is not an isolated discovery. But where do these pearl-producing oysters come from? And where can you buy them?

Oyster shells from Cancale

Clément, from a small village south of Rouen, was the lucky one to find a pearl in his oyster while dining with his parents. "In the summer, they go on vacation to Brittany. On the way back, they stop off in Cancale to buy a basket of oysters. We all eat them together when they come back," says the 24-year-old.

On August 30, Clément was sitting at a table with his parents when he noticed something unusual on his plate. "Just before eating [the oyster], I picked it up off my plate and saw a kind of white pearl under the skin of the oyster. At first I wondered what it was. I checked and it was one! It's the first time it's ever happened to me", the young man tells 76actu.

Delighted by his discovery, Clément informed the producer who had sold the oyster basket to his parents. It was Huîtres Cahue, based in Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes, near Cancale. Very surprised, Yoann, the company owner, says that "it's the third one this year [...] It's unheard of. It [also] happened to a lady who had ordered online".

Although the pearl discovered by Clément is only a few millimetres in size, it is nonetheless very rare. This phenomenon occurs when a grain of sand lodges inside an oyster, which then produces nacre around it. But for the lucky man, selling this pearl is out of the question. "I'll keep it and give it to my daughter, who is only 14 months old today."

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