Pearls in oysters? Not the only thing found in Asheville's seafood restaurants.

ASHEVILLE - One guest’s dinner may be another guest’s treasure at a seafood restaurant.

Chefs and line cooks are known to unearth unexpected items within shipments that are more than what they bargained for ― from natural pearls to mysterious oceanic creatures.

The Lobster Trap line cook Brandt Crabbe estimates he shucks about 75,000-100,000 oysters a year, and in seven years of shucking, he has found nearly 15 pearls hidden inside ranging in shape and usually less than a centimeter in size.

Crabbe’s collection features some larger-than-usual pearls. Although he hasn’t had the pearls appraised, he still gets excited about finding one.

“I figure those are pretty imperfect so they’re probably not worth very much but maybe I’m totally wrong,” said Crabbe, who has nearly a decade in the industry. “I’ve probably shucked about 800,000 oysters by now, and I’ve worked at another place where I shucked oysters, too.”

Oyster House, on average, shucks nearly 150 dozen of oysters a week and a couple of pearls may be found per box of 100 oysters, Billy Klingel, owner of Oyster House Brewing Company, said. Spotting a pearl can be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack ― or more like a sewing pin.

“It’s like the size of one of those round balls at the end of a sewing pin so it may go unnoticed until it ends up in your mouth and your teeth clamp down on it,” Klingel said.

“The biggest one I’ve ever pulled out of an edible oyster was maybe a little bit bigger than a BB (ball bearing) but most of them are really, really small ― just like a tiny, little pea gravel and you just know it’s a pearl because it wants to chip your teeth as you’re biting it,” he said.

Jettie Rae's serves cultivated, farmed, cold water East Coast oysters primarily from New England and Canada, which have the occasional pearl found inside.

“They usually get found by the shuckers because we take really good care and make sure to present a really clean and shell-free oyster, so they don’t usually make it to the table,” Cisa said.

The restaurant has served more than 107,590 oysters on the half shell and is aiming for 135,00 oysters by the end of the year, according to executive chef Will Cisa.

Quality is important, as are speed and precision, when working in a busy restaurant, Cisa said. And the fastest in-house time recorded for shucking a pristine volume of oysters is held by head shucker Mads Ludvigsen, who shucked 400 oysters in an hour and a half.

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Still, one can easily be missed because of its small size, and guests have different reactions to finding a pearl on their plate.

“It’s a gamble on whether they get upset or not. I get it — you don’t want to eat a pearl. Some guests get excited, “Yeah, I got a pearl!’” Mike McCarty, owner of The Lobster Trap said.

Pearl production, value and collections

Explaining the pearl production process can get technical but it boils down to it being the result of the oyster protecting itself from an irritant, which eventually turns into a pearl.

“The pearl is just a foreign object, like a splinter, that gets into the oyster, and the mantle will develop a nacre. The open oyster is irritated, and it will form a pearl that way,” McCarty said.

Pearls may be found in mussels and clam but it’s unusual, he said.

“You see a little bubble and you push at it and a little pearl pops out the side, but most of the time it’s just a bubble,” Crabbe said.

The pearls found at restaurants aren’t the same as what's sold in a jewelry store, which is cultivated and can take years to grow, Cisa said.

“That’s a different species of oyster that they grow, and we don’t really consume those for food. Those are grown to cultivate oysters,” Klingel said. “It’s just a piece of sand, essentially, that starts out and gets in there. It keeps getting tossed around and it rounds it out, and it’ll grow."

But, the value of a natural pearl is more sentimental than monetary.

“Those pearls are worth something but they’re not as valuable as a saltwater pearl that forms,” McCarty said.

An Oyster House line cook found a pearl that was the largest they’re seen at the restaurant ― almost the size of a dime ― and now has it in a jar at home, Klingel said.

Crabbe commissioned a woodworking artist to make an oyster shucker with one of the pearls in his collection embedded in the handle.

Other seafood findings

The most shocking finding in a seafood shipment at Oyster House was a kind of salamander.

“It was huge, and he was still alive,” Klingel said.

Crabbe identified the stowaway, rarely found creatures in The Lobster Trap’s shipments as mudfish.

More often, pea crabs are found hiding inside an oyster. A pea crab sometimes can be the size of a quarter, Klingel said.

“They’re really small, soft-bodied crab that lives in the oyster,” Cisa said. “Honestly, they’re delicious. We take them out before we serve them to guests. It’s one of those things where you may go a month without seeing them and the next bag you’ll open and find a pea crab in every single oyster.”

Klingel most often finds pea crabs tucked inside Blue Point oysters.

“They sneak in there when the oyster opens up to filter water then they end up living there and living off the oyster and growing,” Klingel said. “I’ve found them in all of them, but a box of Blue Points will have 10-12 pea crabs per hundred, and the others you might not find one for months.”

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The crabs are “delicious” and sometimes the pea crabs are saved and served as treats for the staff at Jettie Rae’s and The Lobster Trap.

The Oyster House will serve the pea crab along with the oyster to the guest.

“You’re supposed to eat them because they bring you good luck,” Klingel said.

Tips for eating oysters

Restaurants may offer a variety of edible oyster species, but the difference in oysters lies within their taste, size and textures, Klingel said.

“Smaller ones sometimes have a little more salty flavor,” Klingel said. “As they get bigger, they start to get maybe a little mealy and maybe better for steaming or cooking. If you cook some of these smaller ones there’s not much left of the meat.”

“If you’re starting off, I would go with the smaller oyster first,” McCarty said. “You want to chew it… That’s how you get the flavor on the palate. If you just swallow it, you’re not going to taste it. Chew the oyster, really take it, and I would even smell it.”

Raw oysters may be enhanced with accouterments, such as saltine crackers, horseradish, cocktail sauce, lemon and mignonette—a mixture of shallots, vinegar and peppercorns.

Currently, The Lobster Trap offers seven kinds of oysters originating from the Northeast as well as Prince Edward Island. They may be served raw on the half-shell or steamed, by request. Rockefeller-style and stuffed oysters are on the menu, too.

The Lobster Trap has a signature hot sauce that’s available to diners and recently bottled for retail sale. The restaurant also has an in-house jalapeno pineapple mignonette.

Oyster House offers oysters grown in Mexico and along the East Coast, including Virginia, the Carolinas, Chesapeake Bay, New England and Eastern Canada. Occasionally, West Coast oysters are on the menu, too.

The biggest difference is salinity, Klingel said. Ultimately, the water in which the oysters have grown makes the most impact.

“The perfect storm for oyster cultivation is you get brackish saltwater coming in from the ocean and fresh creek water coming in from the creek, and it’s the perfect blend of those two. When you get it right you get a delicious, salty little oyster,” Klingel said.

McCarty attests to the many factors that can affect the growth and taste of oysters, even when coming from the same location.

“You can have two different types of oysters grow 300 yards apart, and they’ll taste completely different,” McCarty said. “It’s all about the salinity of water and what’s going on around that particular oyster compared to the other one, so they’re all pretty unique.”

Oysters are grown and served year-round and are still good to eat, but there are times when they are considered at their peak. Oysters are spawning in the summer so may not be as flavorful, but in January, they’re “perfect,” Crabbe said.

“The very end of December and all through January they’re cleaner and fresher and so delicious,” Crabbe said.

Cisa differs on the time for the best oysters.

"I think we see the best oysters, honestly, in the late summer and early fall because that's when they're the most well-nourished," Cisa said. "So the best time to eat them is right now, but any other time, too."

Oysters can pack many surprises with the flavor profile greatly varying depending on the species and elements, Cisa said.

“In terms of flavor, that’s where it gets really fun," Cisa said. "The colder the water, the more umami flavors you’ll get out of East Coast oysters, then you’ll get notes of butter popcorn, seaweed... It’s common to taste cucumber (and) vegetal tastes in the oyster. You can get all kinds of wonderful, imaginative, romantic rose petals… oceanic and the smell of the beach ― sometimes that’s prominent.

Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter/Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Pearls in oysters, other rare finds in Asheville seafood restaurants