What do you call lobster head fat?

July 9, 2012 7:30 AM

What do you call the white creamy meat that lines the carapace of a large lobster?

My favorite food is the intensely flavored and smoothly textured custard-like white stuff that lines the main shell of a large lobster. (There's almost none in a 2-pound lobster; the picture above is about all I could get from an 8-pounder.)

I've asked a Cape Cod lobsterman and he said "Are you sure you want to know? That's the 'head fat'". Does anyone know another, maybe more polite, name for this delicacy?

posted by nicwolff to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

Best answer: Nope, sorry: no more polite term for it, I've always heard of it as 'head fat' too.
posted by easily confused at 7:34 AM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe just "lobster fat" since that's basically what it is, right?
posted by Grither at 8:13 AM on July 9, 2012

Best answer: In Maine, head fat was what I always heard it called.
posted by hworth at 8:18 AM on July 9, 2012

I've heard it called "lobster butter" before. No idea how common the term is, though.
posted by bluefly at 9:25 AM on July 9, 2012

It is coagulated lobster blood as far as I know.
posted by Infernarl at 1:48 PM on July 9, 2012

My understanding is also that it's boiled lobster blood, similar to the white stuff that boils off bacon. The wife is a lobster fan and usually refers to it as the protein. Which seems odd now that I think about it. She says she's also heard lobster butter though.
posted by Iteki at 1:56 PM on July 9, 2012

And as for oddball lobster substances, you DO know that the green 'tomally' is actually the liver, right?
posted by easily confused at 4:43 PM on July 9, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! I'm sticking with "head fat". The little strands of unorganized white stuff around the organs may be cooked blood; but the mass of delicious lobster flan that lines the carapace is just not in an anatomically appropriate place or shape for blood.
posted by nicwolff at 6:25 PM on July 9, 2012