The great thing about being a food lover is that you can never know everything there is to know about your passion, anybody pretends to otherwise is either a liar or self delusional fool. Our cooking instructor told us on the first day that coming in, we knew nothing and by the time we graduated, we’d know next to nothing–he was very good at keeping us grounded that way and I never forgot those words. That and “you can always put more in, but you can’t take any out” in regards to seasoning. (Thanks Mr. Sharp!)

And it’s especially humbling when you find out something you darn well should have known–smackdown!  Globally gastromomically, Nova Scotia is synonymous with lobster. And I just found out something about loster roe: that the familiar “coral”, the red waxy substance in the tail of female lobsters, is actually GREEN until the lobster is cooked. Green!  For me, the only green thing in the lobster had been the tomalley, the soft green gooey stuff that some consider a delicacy (it actually serves as a liver/pancreas function).

But nope, tomalley is not the only green thing. The roe is green until cooked. I never realized it because I tend to be a cowardly lobster cooker–headfirst in the pot and slam the lid down. I never could bring myself to drive my knife down in the soft spot on the back of its head, or split it lengthwise to broil, so I’d never seen it before cooking.

I wrote about other little known lobster facts previously, and now I can add the green roe to my list.

Did you roe?