Turtle Was a Popular Dish in the 1800s
Many cookbooks from the 1800s included recipes for cooking turtle; snapping turtle, box turtle, sea turtle, and diamondback terrapin.
Today, many species of turtles are endangered and it’s illegal to capture or kill them. In the U.S., you can hunt diamondback terrapins and snapping turtles, but only in season and you must have a hunting license.
INFORMATION BELOW COMPILED FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS:
TURTLE SOUP
Kill the turtle at daylight in summer, the night before in winter, and hang it up to bleed. After breakfast, scald* it well and scrape the outer skin off the shell. Open it carefully, so as not to break the gall.* Break both shells to pieces and put them into the pot. Lay the fins, the eggs and some of the more delicate parts by—put the rest into the pot with a quantity of water to suit the size of your family.
Add two onions, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, cloves, and allspice to suit your taste. An hour before dinner, take the parts laid by, roll them in brown flour, fry them in butter, and put them and the eggs in the soup. Half an hour before dinner, thicken the soup with brown flour and butter rubbed together. And just before dinner, add a glass of claret or Madeira wine.
*scald – to heat liquid almost to a boil, until bubbles begin to form around the edge.
*gall – gall bladder
EGG BALLS
Make them of the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs rubbed fine. Add the yolk of a raw egg, a tablespoon of melted butter, a saltspoon* of salt, one-half saltspoon pepper, and flour enough to make a dough which can be easily handled. Roll out, cut into little dice, and make each into a ball by rolling between the palms of the hands. Boil five minutes in the soup.
*saltspoon – a miniature spoon used with an open salt cellar for individual use before table salt was free-flowing. One saltspoon equals one-fourth teaspoon.
TO STEW TERRAPINS
Wash four terrapins in warm water, then throw them in a pot of boiling water, which will kill them instantly. Let them boil till the shells crack. Then take them out, and take off the bottom shell. Cut each quarter separate; take the gall from the liver and take out the eggs. Put the pieces in a stew-pan, pour in all the liquor, and cover them with water. Put in salt, cayenne, black pepper, a little mace, and put in a lump of butter the size of an egg. Let them stew for half an hour. Make a thickening of flour and water, and stir a few minutes, then add two glasses of wine. Serve it in a deep covered dish, and put in the eggs just as you dish it.
A TERRAPIN POT-PIE
Take several fine large terrapins, the fattest and thickest you can get. Put them into a large pot of water that is boiling hard and boil them half an hour or more. Then take them out of the shell, pulling off the outer skin and the toe-nails. Remove the gall, taking care not to break it or it will render the whole too bitter to be eaten. Take out also the entrails and throw them away. Then cut up all the meat of the terrapins, taking care to save all the liquid that exudes in cutting up, and also the eggs. Season the whole with pepper, mace, and nutmeg, adding a little salt, and lay among it pieces of fresh butter slightly rolled in flour.
Have ready an ample quantity of paste, made in the proportion of a pound of butter to two large quarts (or pounds) of flour. Butter the inside of an iron pot, and line the sides with paste,* till it reaches within one-third of the top. Then put in the pieces of terrapin, with the eggs, butter, &c., and with all the liquid. Lay among the terrapin square pieces of paste. Then pour in sufficient water to stew the whole properly. Next, cover all with a circular lid or top-crust of paste, but do not fit it so closely that the gravy cannot bubble up over the edges while cooking. Cut a small cross slit in the top crust.
Place the pot with the pie over a good fire. Boil it till the whole is thoroughly done, which will be in from three-quarters to an hour after it comes to a boil. Take care not to let it get too dry, but keep at hand a kettle of boiling water to replenish the pot when necessary. To ascertain if the pie is done, lift up with a fork a little of the paste at one side, and try it low down in the pot.
It may be much improved, by mixing among the pieces of terrapins, (before putting them into the pie), some yolks of hard-boiled eggs, grated or minced. They will enrich the gravy.
*paste – crust or dough, like for pies.
TURTLE FINS
Put into a stew-pan five large spoons of brown sauce, with a bottle of port wine and a quart of mushrooms. When the sauce boils, put in four fins. After taking away all the small bones that are seen breaking through the skin, add a few sprigs of parsley, a bit of thyme, one bay leaf, and four cloves. Let it simmer one hour. Ten minutes before it is done, put in five dozen of button onions ready peeled, and see that it is properly salted.
TERRAPIN SALAD
Boil them until the shells will come off easily and the nails pull out. Then cut the meat into small pieces and carefully remove the sand-bag and gall.
To three good sized terrapins, take six hard-boiled eggs. Remove the yolks and rub into a powder with half a pound of sweet butter. When creamy and light, add one teaspoon of flour. Put this with the meat into a saucepan, season with cayenne pepper and salt, and let it boil for one or two minutes. Just before taking from the fire, add wine to taste, and if desired, a little mace.
Be careful to remove the skin from the legs
NOTE:
I found many recipes for Mock Turtle Soup as a cheaper substitute for green turtle soup. Many recipes called for a calf’s head as the source of meat. ~ Angela
MOCK TURTLE SOUP
A calf’s head is usually taken for this soup, but a set of calf’s feet and a pound of lean veal answer equally well. In either case, boil the meat in four quarts of water for five hours, reducing the amount to two quarts, and straining as for clear soup.
Remove all fat and put on the fire next day, half an hour before dinner, seasoning it with a saltspoon each of mace, powdered thyme, or sweet marjoram and clove.
Melt a piece of butter the size of a walnut in a small saucepan. Add a heaping tablespoon of flour, and stir both till a bright brown. Add soup till a smooth thickening is made, and pour it into the soup-kettle. Cut about half a pound of the cold meat into small dice, and put into the tureen.
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Have You Ever Eaten Turtle or Mock Turtle Soup? Please Leave a Comment Below.
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2 thoughts on “Turtle Was a Popular Dish in the 1800s”
Yes as a kid we would catch turtles and frogs at a nearby pond. We would bring them home and clean them and my mom would cook them up. Found a recipe today from a cook book copyrighted in 1887.
How interesting. My cousin, who lives in a rural area in southern Illinois told me he caught “gigged” bullfrogs to eat, but there was a hunting season for them. I never thought of that; just assumed hunting seasons were for deer and other similar animals. I have eaten frog legs in a restaurant and bought canned turtle soup. I don’t know if the turtle soup I bought was real, though, or mock turtle soup.