I'm a bit uncertain about the logistics of using an email address inside of a meta description tag.
I'd like to know if it's possible (I don't see why it couldn't be) or am I likely to run into an issue of a server not parsing the @ symbol?
Edit: removed additional question
Having [email protected] (or mailto:[email protected]) in the meta-description is nothing different than having any other text there. User agents should interpret it as text, not as URI.
(Of course bots looking for email addresses might parse/understand it, but that’s obviously the case no matter where your publish the address. This question is not the appropriate place to discuss strategies to prevent bots from recognizing email addresses.)
In HTML5, unless the page is about this email address, it would probably be wrong to include it in the description, as it (emphasis mine)
[…] must be a free-form string that describes the page.
(It should not describe the author, nor should it offer contact details.)