The XO Directory

After just two weeks that George and Leslie Brock find a pearl in a plate of steamed clam, it happened again to Mike McHenry, a New Jersey man who was eating fried oysters when he chomped down on a pea-sized pearl.

"You might break your teeth on it if you crunch down too hard," the 60-year-old Washington Township man said of his discovery at Russo's Ristorante in Washington Borough.

McHenry's find was rare, according to Gef Flimlin, a marine extension agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension, who said 95 percent of pearls are cultured for production, unlike the naturally formed pearl McHenry found.

"It's unusual to find one in this type of oyster," McHenry said. "Like one in a million."

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