Usually, when you tell people that you got something from the oysters you ate at a restaurant, most people will assume you got food poisoning. Oysters, provided they're fresh and properly prepared, are a unique journey into the world of seafood (as well as an aphrodisiac), but usually when we talk about a man ordering oysters at a restaurant, things usually go rather south.
As a result it's nice to hear for a change that oysters can be in the news for positive reasons. They really needed the PR boost, I think. So let's head to Manhattan, where a man from Edgewater, New Jersey, was about to get the surprise of his life from his oyster dinner.
Rick Antosh was heading to lunch with a friend at the Oyster Bar inside Grand Central Terminal on December 1, and ordered some oysters. He was engaged in conversation with his lunch partner when it happened.
"We were engaged in conversation and all of a sudden, whoop, what is that?" he recalled.
"I didn’t bite on it, but I sensed something was odd. I thought maybe it was a filling or a tooth. When I saw the black dot that really intrigued me. What is that? I first thought is this something that broke off a utensil from the kitchen?"
Antosh was about to throw the offending object in his oyster away, but then he noticed how round and smooth and round it was. Definitely not a tooth. Curiosity piqued, Antosh took his mystery object into the kitchen, where he got a pretty big surprise: he'd found a pearl in his oyster!
"The one chef in the restaurant said he’s been there 28 years and this is only the second time this has happened," explained Antosh, underlining how rare it really was to discover an oyster in this manner.
In their natural habitat, there's a one in 10,000 chance that a pearl will form inside an oyster, usually once a grain of sand gets inside of the oyster's shell, and they're usually worth thousands of dollars a pop.
How much is Rick Antosh's pearl worth, you ask? We may never know: Antosh hasn't had it appraised yet, because he's got no intention of selling it. As you might do in his situation, Antosh looks upon his oyster surprise as somewhat of a good luck charm, and considering how rare they are, you can't blame him.
"The wonderful thing about this is it has a story," he explained, revealing that as long as his cat doesn't somehow swipe it, Antosh hopes that the pearl will stay with him and bring him good luck. "The end of the year, you know, for next year, this is a sign," he added.
What's more, he says that the entire experience has helped him to love oysters even more, and he'll carry on ordering them at restaurants, just in case he finds another one and can make a collection. With his luck so far, I don't blame him.
