Have You Seen Pearls Being Taken out from Oysters?
Like how Marilyn Monroe sings it, diamonds are a girl’s best friend. But what about the other best friend, pearls?
Now, we all know that pearls are harvested from oysters. What happens is that the oyster gets a sand particle or little pebble into its shell. It gets irritated the way you would when dust gets in your eye. You tear up as a result. The oyster “tears up” too, by secreting a pearly substance called “nacre” that coats up the sand particle overtime to form a pearl.
Have you ever seen pearls being taken out from oysters before? I don’t know about you, but I certainly haven’t!
We were at a department store where they had a pearl counter. The guy had piles of pearl oysters in front of him and he was harvesting pearls from them!
It looked to be a fairly easy and quick process. The guy was sitting back and looking incredibly bored as he was getting the beautiful pearls out of those oysters.
1) pry open the oyster.
2) flip over the tiny flap containing the pearl.
3) take out the pearl and cleanse it to get rid of the oyster stench.
The guy said that these were specially bred pearl oysters and it took 3 to 5 years for the oysters to turn the irritants into pearls. The pearls ranged in various colours (white, peach, golden), sizes and shapes. Apparently, the round ones are pretty rare. Oysters like their pearls to be oval in shape.
There you go! A real pearl taken right out of a real oyster!
Feb 24, 2007
34
Singapore departmental store? Which 1?
Feb 24, 2007
3
Never seen a pearl harvested before so thanks for the closeups! The pearls look soo pretty :)
Feb 24, 2007
80
Just a thought: if a particle the size of a sand particle can irritate the oyster so much, then won’t creating a much bigger sized object out of a sand particle irritate it more?
Feb 24, 2007
2
i am wondering abt the authencity of the pearl though … isnt pearl suppose to be precious? the dept store is giving it out the shoppers with a low min. purchase, i think less than S$100?
Feb 24, 2007
16
according to this website, the bigger the irritant, the bigger the pearl.
but bigger pearls wil also form if the oysters are given more time to ‘grow’ before harvesting the pearl.
however, according to this website it says that the bigger the pearl, the more likely there will be irregularities on the pearl, such as missing chunks of nacre..
so, “perfect” big pearls are a rarity n therefore.. more expensive.. but the higher irregularities occurence is probably reason enough why culturers dont let pearls grow to such big sizes..
just my guess based on what i’ve read.. :)
Feb 24, 2007
12
hmmm did u accidently eat that pearl? haha…
Feb 24, 2007
182
THis is interesting. Which departmental store is it? Sounds OG to me……
Feb 25, 2007
14
i love pearls~
and, yes, been to a pearl farm before.
i dont usually like gimmicks though.
Feb 25, 2007
3472
DK: It is OG. We were at the People’s Park branch.
Maki: No problem! It’s my first time seeing this live too!
pkchukiss: You mean put in a bigger pebble instead of a sand particle to create a bigger pearl?
kat: I think the pearls that are created without any human interference are more expensive. These particular oysters are bred specially to produce pearls.
Daphne: Thanks for the snippet of information! That explains why there are no giant pearls around.
Keropok Man: It hardly looked tantalising.
py: Yeah you are right! But I never knew that OG had such gimmicks.
xxoos: I wanna go to a pearl farm too!
Feb 26, 2007
38
And unheard to the rest of us, a poor little oyster screams in pain as a pearl is removed from its tongue hehehe
Feb 28, 2007
1
i see now
thank you!
Jan 20, 2009
1
Where is People’s Park branch?