What Was In My Wife's Lobster??
Hey Hounds.
Last night we had lobsters for dinner. Fresh steamed in my kitchen of course.
Anyway, when my wife tore the body from the tail, she found this huge black....thing... inside it. It ran most of the length of the thorax and just into the tail.
Any idea of what it was??
It was boy lobster if that's any help.
DT
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re: aurora50
bryan
May 14, 2007 09:58 PM
Female lobster generally are wider in the upper dorsal tail region. This allows room in the tail to store the premature eggs. Females can also be distinguished by their soft, thin set of first pleopods (swimmerets). Males have a hard, thicker set of first pleopods, and have smaller hard appendages (masculina) attached to their second set of pleopods.
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Veggo
May 14, 2007 01:20 PM
I just phoned my old bud in Port Clyde, Maine, who runs a few hundred traps. He said the cold water currents were much further offshore this past winter, and that bait/ fuel /travel time were more onerous than ever. Conditions are correcting as we speak, and the price at the dock is $6/ lb. today. Bodes well (at least better) for we crustacean eaters this summer!
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Davwud
May 14, 2007 01:03 PM
Thanks Hounds.
I went into this feeling that it was just a full tummy or a back up in the intestinal tract. Most seem to confirm this.
It WAS NOT ROE as this creature was a male. Either that or a freak of nature.
It WAS COOKED as were the others. All delicious I might add.And for those of you lamenting the cost of the bugs. The local Dominion grocery store had a mothers day weekend special on. $7.99/lb. Treated my mom to lobster dinner.
DT
›2 Replies-
re: Davwud
bryan
May 14, 2007 09:57 PM
Well, yeah, it was poop. That's why lobsters sit in tanks in restaurants for a few days. So they purge themselves. Of course if they get they hungry enough... they'll eat a weak lobster. It's put my sister off lobster forever. She works in a seafood place.
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QueenB
May 14, 2007 11:28 AM
Yes, I'm the dork looking up lobster anatomy.
Anyway, I believe what you saw was stomach. And a full one, at that. Take a look at these diagrams:
http://www.osl.gc.ca/homard/en/espece...The intestine runs the length of the tail to the anus. There is a second stomach attached to the intestine, and I'm thinking if the lobster ate recently, perhaps this is what you saw?
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re: jackrugby
clamscasino
May 14, 2007 10:52 AM
Absolutely. The tomalley is great! I'm always so disappointed when my lobster has little tomalley in it.
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re: aurora50
Absolutely. Tomalley is considered a delicacy. I know the very term delicacy brings to mind some very odd foodstuffs from different cultures, many such delicacies I'd never go near. But lobster tomalley is delicious and since I'm not innately averse to the concept of eating it, I savor every bit when I'm lucky enough to get a fair amount.
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re: laylag
Rubee
May 14, 2007 03:23 PM
I've never made it, but there is a recipe in "Lobster at Home" for "Tomalley Toasts" with tomalley butter - toasted baguette slices spread with a mixture of tomalley, garlic, butter, parsley and chives, baked a few minutes until bubbling. Sounds good, doesn't it?
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Veggo
May 14, 2007 10:26 AM
I am surprised that only the poster and none of the postees- thus far - has had this experience. I have had the "black goop" surprise at least 20 times. It has nothing to do with cooking time. Roe is red, liver is green. This is black as squid ink, and a volume equal to a ping pong ball, in a 2 pounder. Whatever sac it had been contained in is torn apart when the tail is twisted off from the body, and the goop is loose. I just scrape it off from the strands of the tail with the dull side of a knife. No doubt it is unpooped poop. Hey, we eat clams and oysters without the luxury of separating tomorrow's fertilizer. The most unsavory aspect is that this season, you have paid at least $16.50 a pound for a Maine lobster.
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re: Veggo
Rubee
May 14, 2007 10:49 AM
We parboil lobsters often (about 5-1/2 minutes for a 2-pounder) for baked stuffed, pan-roasted with cognac sauce (my favorite Jasper White recipe), Newburg, lobster thermidor, etc. If it is a female and there are unfertilized eggs, it is an inky-black or sometimes greenish-black, jelly-like substance that only turns red when it and the lobster is fully cooked. I scrape out this black stuff, and use it to flavor the butter or cream sauce over low heat, which then turns pink.
Oddly enough, this post, even with this talk of black goop, has made me decide to go out and pick up a couple of lobsters for dinner tonight. ; )
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re: Rubee
Veggo
May 14, 2007 11:05 AM
My cooking rule of thumb is 3 minutes for the first pound, 2 minutes for each additional pound. (After the water returns to a boil). And I deal with red, green, and black, as the cards are dealt. My mother loves the red and the green. The black? Her momma didn't raise no stupid children.
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re: Veggo
Rubee
May 14, 2007 11:15 AM
Hey, us New Englanders take our lobster (and I my intelligence) very seriously.
Your cooking time explains it - 5 minutes for a 2-lb lobster is not fully cooked. I boil a 2-lb lobster in heavily salted water for 14-15 minutes.
http://www.lobsterfrommaine.com/mastering_moist_heat.htm
A Guide To Lobster 'Stuff' By Color
Black Stuff - An uncooked or undercooked female lobster may be harboring eggs, also known as roe or lobster caviar. These eggs prior to cooking appear thick, shiny and black, and may be found throughout the tail. If you have cooked your lobster and still see the black stuff, cook them longer and the black stuff will turn into...
Red Stuff - Once the above mentioned female lobster is fully cooked, those eggs turn bright red in color.(though OP's lobster was male so this wasn't it).
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re: Rubee
Veggo
May 14, 2007 11:43 AM
Rubee, I hoped that science would trump my ignorant hunch about the black stuff, but I remain stubborn in my ignorance. Why is it always either all red and firm, or all black and oozy, and never in between? (actually, the black has a hint of dark green as I scrape off the last vestiges from the tail). I have eaten hundreds if not a thousand lobsters in part because they are as easy to cook as a hard boiled egg. Your cooking time seems like a lot, and lobster gets tough if overcooked. But it works for you. I cannot imagine what sort of metamorphosis would befall my black goop if I let it cook a little longer.
P.S. I'm a transplanted New Englander, so we're on the same side here:) But we all suffer from sticker shock this year.-
re: Veggo
Rubee
May 14, 2007 11:51 AM
I hear ya re: sticker shock - Yikes, I heard $31 for a lobster roll at B & G.
Actually, my husband just walked over to J. Hook to get us our lobsters. It will be interesting to see what we get (female with roe, a dark thick intestinal tract, etc). I'll take pics in the name of CH research.
(BTW - my lobster bible is Jasper White's "Lobster at Home" - the information, cooking tips, times, guidelines, and diagrams in the Lobster Primer section takes up the first 40 pages alone. Highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good lobster cookbook. It has all the classic recipes from lobster stew to Newburg, but also contributions from various chefs like Robuchon, Puck, Bayless, Kinkead, Bouloud, etc. I've probably made half the recipes from the book, and they've all been winners).
Previous CH discussion (along with baked stuffed recipe I'm making tonight)
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re: Rubee
Veggo
May 14, 2007 12:14 PM
90% of the time, you won't have the green-red-black surprises, especially this early in the season. Buen provecho!
I usually get deleted when I offer up factoids, but I'll try one more time. In the 1700's until the civil war, slave owners in South Carolina had a gentleman's agreement not to feed lobsters to slaves more than four meals a week, because they were considered to be trash food.-
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re: mardy
JMF
May 14, 2007 08:25 PM
Maine lobster, also called the American lobster, grow as far south as North Carolina.
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re: Davwud
You are correct. Lobsters caught off Rhode Island's coast don't seem as flavorful as those caught further north off Maine's coast.
I've eaten a lot of lobster over the decades, and would not bother with those caught in the warmer waters south of Cape Cod.
Nor would I order swordfish in a Kansas restaurant....
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re: Veggo
QueenB
May 14, 2007 11:52 AM
"When cutting a cooked lobster tail lengthwise, we can sometimes see a large red line. Those are the ovaries with unfertilized eggs. They can be eaten. Sometimes, there's a black slimy substance. This is due to egg resorption. Those are eggs that were about to be laid when the female was caught. Instead of being laid, they were liquefied. The vitello-proteins contained in the eggs were re-circulated in the blood, giving it a black color. It is not very appetizing but the lobster is good nevertheless. It simply needs to be rinsed."
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re: Veggo
clamscasino
May 14, 2007 02:12 PM
Not a marine biologist, but I highly recommend the book: The Secret Life of Lobsters. Also, the authors web-site is great: www.thesecretlifeoflobsters.com
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re: Veggo
Rubee
May 14, 2007 02:34 PM
"Your cooking time seems like a lot, and lobster gets tough if overcooked. "
Yes, I've been cooking lobster for 20 years, so actually have had a lot of practice. Believe me, raised in Massachusetts and eating it and cooking it as often as I have (and eating out just as frequently), tough lobster does not appeal to me. I do remove the dark vein/intestinal tract, and never overcook it. Contrary to your insistence, I do not serve friends and family overcooked tough stringy lobster accompanied by pink poop. ; )
I'm just trying to explain what you said earlier, that you were "surprised that only the poster and none of the postees- thus far - has had this experience. I have had the "black goop" surprise at least 20 times. It has nothing to do with cooking time. Roe is red, liver is green."
But since your technique is 5 minutes for a 2-lb lobster - under-cooking your lobster has everything to do with it. When I've boiled a 2-lb lobster for only 5 minutes and it's a female with unfertilized eggs, the roe is ALWAYS black. The intestinal track that runs down the length of the tail appears usually as a dark vein and different from a green-black mass of 'jelly' mostly located in the thorax. Quick way to tell - roe turns red and firm when it's cooked. Nothing wrong with the fact that you prefer your lobster with "gelatineous sweet translucence"- However, that lobster is not fully cooked, and it's not long enough to cook all the roe.
"Roe (found in some female lobsters) will be bright red and firm. If it is black and oily the lobster is undercooked."
http://capmorrills.com/lobster/pages....
The reason I've seen it so often is because I make a lot of dishes using under-cooked/partially cooked lobster, and then finishing in the oven, sauces, pasta, etc.
Of course, this doesn't explain the OP's lobster, but explains why you see that so often if you cook yours for such a short time.
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re: Niblet
Veggo
May 14, 2007 02:03 PM
I would move mountains for sushi, were they not so heavy. There is a critical moment during the cooking time line for tuna, lobster, pompano, boquinette, swordfish, shrimp, and others, where the flesh loses its delicious gelatineous sweet translucence and becomes a stringy, opaque mass of bland whiteness. Just my opinion.
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re: TheDescendedLefticleOfAramis
While we're on the subject, what's the deal with hard-shell lobsters? They're so damn hard to crack, we use hammers!!! Where we live in Southern California, it's hard to tell what the hard-shell and soft-shell seasons are. I'd like to never get a hard-shell again - for you Hounders back east, what is the best way to ensure that?
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re: aurora50
Veggo
May 15, 2007 05:18 PM
Lordy, keep that hammer and be glad to have the need for it. Hard shell means the critter has had a chance to bulk up in it's new, larger home, and the flesh is so much firmer, and more of it. Soft shell, generally toward the end of summer when they molt again, the claws are mostly filled with liquid and the mushy flesh can be a third of the customary mass. My friend in Maine was explaining to me why lobsters have been more scarce since winter- the cold water currents have been much further off shore, and the warmer water "tricks" the lobsters into molting prematurely. Trust me just this once- hard shell is what you want.
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re: aurora50
Veggo
May 22, 2007 12:05 PM
Yo! Davwud! We need a little more help here with your camera and your toolbox! If one goes with the "concussion" method of the hammer, rather than the "squeeze" method of the channel lock, one should place a small towel over the item to be whacked, forming it around the hump of the target area, to control the flyaway shells and splatter from an "overstrike". When one correctly evaluates the formidability of the shell strength, and calibrates the exact force of the blow required, and delivers it so that the shell is broken but the meat is not smashed in the process, one enjoys a warm, fleeting moment of accomplishment. This thread is wandering somewhere between This Old House, and a Mark Bittman demonstration:)
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re: Davwud
Veggo
May 22, 2007 07:48 PM
That would be the Channellock #326 which I use for grouper cheeks. Your photo was, for different purposes, of course, the Channellock #430. My preferred tool for whacking both lobster claws and stone crab claws, is the basic Channellock plier #349, second to the claw hammer. I know this sounds goofy, but if anyone can ever find fault with the facts in any of my posts, I will buy every hound a beer.
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re: Rubee
Late last summe in New England, select size hard shells were going for $10-11/lb. Soft shells were about $6/lb and not worth it..imo
If I'm serving lobster indoors, I'll generally crack the claws in the kitchen..back of a chef's knife or a Chinese cleaver..also food for separating the knuckles..first wrap the claw in a towel to keep the splatter down.
The channellock works well also; and I use that if I don't have the other tools handy..especially on larger lobsters with thicker shells.
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jfood
May 14, 2007 09:45 AM
D
Looks like its just a vein. Several websites reported that answere but here is a link to a website and hopefully is correct:
http://www.lobster.um.maine.edu/index...
"Using a sharp knife, slice the lobster down the middle (easiest to cut legs side up). Remove the black vein from the tail, the greenish tomalley from the body and the sand sac located near the head. Baste the lobster meat with some oil or melted butter."
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Infomaniac
May 14, 2007 08:59 AM
Are you sure it was a male lobster, because the roe in female lobsters will be bright orange-red and firm when cooked. If it is a dark greenish-black, with an oily tar-like consistency, the lobster is under cooked.
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Emme
May 13, 2007 06:39 PM
Q: What is the black vein in the tail and should you remove it before you eat the tail?
A: The black vein in the tail is the intestine, which is part of the digestive system. Even though it will not harm you, yes you should remove it before you eat the tail.
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Rubee
May 13, 2007 06:28 PM
Hmmm...definitely a male lobster, huh?
I've seen black jelly-like stuff when I've parboiled a female lobster with roe or "coral" (this turns red when it is fully cooked).
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re: Davwud
Rubee
May 14, 2007 09:19 AM
This is so curious, I'm intrigued. Yep, definitely a male.
The stomach/head sac/grain sac is found behind the lobster's eyes/mouth, so that couldn't be it. Not the liver/tomalley because that is green.
Maybe some unusual blockage of the thin tube-like digestive tract/intestine, since a "huge black thing" like a sac is different than a dark vein. But then again, the intestine runs all the way down the tail, not "the length of the thorax and just into the tail". Hmm...
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Doggone it, just when I had almost worked up enough nerve to eat my first lobster in 53 years of life on this earth....
Did she eat it?
›2 Replies
