February 18, 2023 • 39 mins
The raging popularity of this soup in centuries past nearly drove three separate species of turtles to extinction, and it can still be (more sustainably) enjoyed today. Anney and Lauren just keep swimming through the history and culture of turtle soup – and mock-turtle soup, too.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have
an episode for you about turtle soup. Yes, and what
a wild ride it is? Oh my heck, yeah, yeah,
this is right. This is one of those ones where
like I was like, oh, yeah, this is a okay.
So so like Marta Grass coming up and I was like,
(00:29):
all right, Like, what's a dish that New Orleans is
famous for that we haven't really dug into yet. Uh,
Commander's Palace is sort of famous for having turtle soup.
You had some moile we were there, Um, let's talk
about that. And then you get into the history and
it's just bonkers. It's just like what the heck we're
humans up to? What were they doing? And why? Holy heck? Yes? Yes,
(00:55):
And it was one of the times where we kept
having to remind ourselves we are a food show. Yeah,
turtles are cool and weird. It was difficult listeners, it really, yes. Um.
I just before we started, I had to like close
(01:15):
a side quest tab that I had just opened about tortoiseshell,
like as a material um, because we have to record
this episode and I can't today. I cannot today. Were
a food show ostensibly. Ostensibly we do have some fun facts.
We did bad facts this one. UM. I did. Just
(01:39):
remember before we did this, some of you listeners know,
I know, Lauren knows, I have not a great history
with pets. Um, you're no faults of my own, I
would like to say, but some of it was fault
of my own. This was all like as a young child,
I did have a pet turtle. Um. I believe his
(02:00):
aim was it was one of those like really bad
puns like Shelly. I don't think it was Shelly, but
it was like that one level. I had a pet
turtle and my older brother had a pet snake and
we went on a vacation and we bought them both
with us. Oh yeah, that's ambitious, it certainly was. And uh,
(02:23):
We're going to go out to lunch, and I put
up this whole big fuss about like, look, we can't
leave my turtle with the snake because the snake will
kill my turtle and it will be so tragic. And
my parents were like, that's really not how it works.
They'll be fine. Um. So we kept them in the
same like aquarium situation, and we returned from lunch and
(02:51):
both were dead because my turtle had tried to eat
the snake and choked. And so yeah, more turtles. UM,
I'm sorry that I just laughed so hard at that.
(03:11):
Um no, it's pretty funny hindsight. I'm sorry to the
turtle land the snake. Do you do harshly sneak? It
was the turtle that was the threat. I yeah, no.
And turtles yeah, um, turtles have a lot of ire
in their hearts. Um, they do not like us, and
I think that this history will reveal why. It will.
(03:32):
Indeed it will indeed, uh to kind of give us
an up note after that story, I also recently hung
out with a good friend of my friend of the show, Marissa,
and it's it's a long, confusing, convoluted story, but essentially
she just said in the middle of a conversation, uh,
that's like turtle talk, and expected us all to know
(03:55):
what she was talking about. And it took, I would say,
a solid set the minutes before we got to the
bottom of what she was talking about, which is Crush,
the animated turtle from Finding Nemo has this thing called
turtle talk at Disney World where he talks to you
m turtle talk. And I bring it up because this
(04:19):
is actually something that came up in the research, a
lot of sort of this like cutification or anthropomorphizing of
turtles in the story of turtle soup and why it
sort of fell out of favor. But it just made
me laugh because she was so certain we would all
know what turtle talk was, Like, clearly it's turtle talk obviously, right. Um, yeah, no,
(04:40):
that's not I had not heard of that before either,
So I'm glad, thank you for elucidating um. Always. Yeah,
it was very funny. It was one of those conversations
I wish I had recorded. Um, But all right, Uh,
you can see our New Orleans mini series for more
few popular during Mardi Gras, just kind of a general
(05:03):
contextualization history of that culinary scene. And yes, I did
have some I had some turtle soup when we were there.
But I guess this brings us to our question. I
suppose it does in a very interesting way. Yes, turtle soup.
(05:25):
What is it? Well, turtle soup is a category of
soups made with turtle meat, though these days a mock
turtle soup is probably more common in a lot of
places um, which is a category of soups made with
turtle substitutes, and of course, like making a meat into
a soup, can take just about infinite forms, depending on
the exact cut of meat in question and what other
(05:48):
ingredients you incorporate and how you season it. And indeed,
various cultures around the world make all sorts of soups
using turtles, but in the English speaking world, and specifically
in the US and extra specifically in New Orleans, a
turtle soup often refers to a a hardy tomato based
soup that's thickened with a with a toasty rou season
(06:11):
with worcestera shear sauce and aliens um and sweet and
spicy peppers, brightened with lemon and parsley, and smoothed out
and sort of sweetened with sherry upon serving. All with
this with this rich undercurrent of turtle stock and little
bits of meat um mock. Turtle soups usually use beef
or veal as a substitute. And like you know how,
(06:32):
you know how some soups are almost like a gravy
kind of um, like a sipping gravy. It's it's, it's,
it's one of those um it's it's one of those
uh savory and silky and stick to your bones like
a like a meaty tomato soup like gumbo. Took a
hard left at Albuquerque and now it's not sure where
(06:52):
the heck it is. Um it's it's old fashioned and
a little fussy in a way that also feels um
homey and and modern to me, which to me is
just absolutely New Orleans. Like that is the vibe. Yeah, yeah,
I agree. It's got like all these kind of steps,
(07:14):
like the adding of the sherry at the end that
feels very New Orleans to me, kind of that final
touch all right, yeah, and like and having write like
a tradition around it, having like at like it's not
just soup like you right, you have right right, Yeah,
Like there's uh not in every place, but in a
lot of places. Area's kind of a serving whole yeah,
ritual around serving at the soup love it um Okay.
(07:39):
So turtle is a darker type of meat with them
a richness like like a chicken thigh or pork, but
a little bit of the chew and brininess and sweetness
of like clam. Yeah. Um, it's been compared to to
frog legs if you're familiar with those, and turtle turtle
itself is gonna be a whole different episode or series
(08:01):
of episodes at some point. Um but but yeah, these
are usually um aquatic or semi aquatic reptiles with an
internal skeletal structure and the large external shell that's fused
on the types of turtles used today can vary. It's
often snapping turtle. Um. Traditionally speaking, you would make a
stock from like bone in turtle and then use that
(08:22):
stock in creating the soup. For mock turtle soup, you're
probably using beef stock, and to build the flavor and
the body of the soup, Yeah, you start with a
room um, which is butter and flour cooked together to
make in this case like a toast colored paste um.
Then add a version of merpoi or dice Aarabatic vegetables
that's called trinity or holy trinity, which consists of onion
(08:43):
and celery and bell pepper um. After they soften, you
start adding stock until you approach the consistency that you're
going for, and also add in whatever meat you're using,
either ground or chopped um, plus crushed tomatoes or maybe
tomato juice and your seasonings. Seasonings can vary that worce
to shear sauce, Cayenne, pepper, paprika, nutmeg, and cinnamon are
(09:04):
all pretty common. Um. And then yeah, after simmering everything together,
you finished with stuff that you don't want to to
to get cooked down. Um, lemon juice and or zest, parsley,
maybe some chopped hard boiled eggs and some dry sherry. Um.
The sherry can also be added at the table if
you are yes going for that ritual kind of situation.
(09:24):
For mock turtle soup, the meat might be ground beef
or chopped veal or um the meat pulled from a
boiled calf's head um, which is like really specific when winter.
When turtle meat first became real expensive, calf's head was
considered like the best substitute. Although these days it's probably
just as difficult to get a hold of. So yeah,
(09:47):
mileage may very um. If you are looking for turtle meat, UM,
check a check your local Asian supermarket. Um. But you
can also buy it online. Yeah. And yeah, turtle soup
these days is mostly served places that are like marketing
a historical sort of vibe. In cities like New Orleans
or Philadelphia. It can be an appetizer or a main course. Um.
(10:10):
In some places it might be called snapper soup or
terrapin soup, based on the species of turtle that was
traditionally used in that area. Mm hmmm mmmm well what
about the nutrition? It depends, It depends. It's a soup,
it depends on what you put in it. Um. But
but I will say that, like generally there's like this
(10:33):
is like a real heavy soup. So there's like a
lot of butter involved, which is great tasting. Um. Uh,
it's you know, I don't eat eat eat a vegetable.
You know, turtle is not a vegetable. Kind a moment
where I like, wait a minute, Oh yeah, firing on
all cylinders today, Oh yeah, oh yeah, we have a
(10:56):
couple of numbers slash facts for yeah, okay, alright, so
like yeah, we have like one bullet point of numbers. Um.
As of two thousand and eight, China was farming um
three hundred to six hundred million turtles a year UM
worth some seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Yeah. Um.
(11:18):
The mock turtle was featured in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
um when she goes through the through the keyhole and
hangs out with right, the mock turtle and the and
the griffin, and they have like a silly race and
the mouse tells its long sad tale and then she
cries a lot um and they all float away honestly
(11:40):
of her tears. Oh wow, that's such a fun thing
to hear, kind of about a context. I really liked it. Yeah.
As we discussed in our Alice episode, describing anything from
those books is uh fun task, difficult, fun, strange task.
(12:01):
Yeah yeah, yeah, um, alright, one one more? Okay, So
as a riff on the candies that are called turtles,
which are like chocolate covered like bits of caramel and nuts. Yeah,
Ben and Jerry's had an ice cream flavor in the
early twenty ADS called turtle soup. Oh, turtle soup. Yeah, yeah,
(12:25):
I forgot about that. My dad used to get me
turtles every Christmas. They were good, they were good. I've
told the story before. But I would always get the
dark chocolate ones, right, no chocolate ones, and my younger
brother would get the white chocolate ones. Yeah turtles. Well, wow,
we have quite the history for you. Oh heck, we do, okay,
(12:47):
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break for a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
thank you. And uh so turtles, oh dear, Yeah, that's
(13:11):
gonna be a whole episode, probably a whole different podcasts there. Fascinating,
honestly fascinating, and they're very very old, and they're like
frequently put in the same kind of category of like dinosaurs.
That's cool. Like I've found some accounts that said that
they're about a hundred and ten million years old sea turtles,
(13:31):
specifically aquatic turtles, um, although some pretty recent developments I
think from put them at closer to two hundred and
thirty million years old. Okay, alright, cool, yeah, okay, so
they've been doing what they've been doing for for just
a second here for a hot second. Um, Well, archaeological
(13:55):
evidence shows that Paleolithic people were probably eating turtles and
tortoise is as long as four hundred thousand years ago
and what's now Israel. Um so ah, yes, turtles have
been around for a while and we've been eating them
for a while. Yes, And this was one of those
ones where to me, it just makes sense wherever turtles
(14:17):
where people were probably eating them. I couldn't like find
a lot of sources about it, but I imagine, Yeah,
if turtles were around, people were probably like, can I
eat that? It doesn't move that fast? Let's try. Yeah, exactly. Um.
Local turtles had been a key part of the diets
of Indigenous Americans for centuries prior to European colonization. Um.
(14:39):
But yeah, jumping wetead turtle soup. Turtle soup became popular
in the seventeen hundreds. According to some sources, British soldiers
on the return voyage from the Caribbean would catch wild
turtles um as a source of protein. Um. And they
would also transport some of these turtles back home, where
rich people readily bought them up, snash them up, um,
(15:02):
serving them at these fancy dinner parties and celebrations. At
the height of the turtle trade, Britain was importing fifteen
thousand turtles from the Caribbean a year. But yeah, this
was a far cry from their subsistence beginnings. Yeah. Historian
India mandel Kom wrote the green sea turtle was without
(15:24):
doubt the most expensive status Latin and morally contested feat
of eighteenth century English cuisine. Like by the seventeen fifties,
eating turtle was a huge status symbol and like vaguely
patriotic for the English because like they had successfully colonized
(15:45):
the Caribbean and they could afford to import this kind
of weird animal from there and then eat it. Uh
So it was really wrapped up in this kind of
like nationalistic pride about colonization, interesting interest in giving what
happens with like New Orleans and France and England anyway,
(16:08):
huh okay, Well, this dishes popularity extended to the well
to do in the American colonies, um, and it was
adapted based on region two. Um. They even played a
main role like turtle soup UM. And turtles also played
a main role in some post revolution American dishes for
(16:28):
the likes of John Adams. And apparently there was an
elite Hoboken Turtle Club formed and President Lincoln allegedly had
turtle soup at his inaugural feast. Like it was a
very yeah, I kind of had this like or this
(16:50):
mystike fancy turtles. In Philadelphia, for instance, people would add
sherry just before serving um and at the time in
that area, turtle soup generally consisted of big green sea turtles. Yeah.
And these had to be brought in from the coast, um,
and possibly from further down south. Their their fat layer
(17:13):
has this greenish tinge that might have kind of colored
the soup a little bit. I'm not sure, y. Yeah,
which was the thing? Which was the thing you wanted?
The well, some people wanted that green tinge? Yeah. Um.
And these turtles could vary wildly in size, but generally
fell between fifty to three hundred pounds. And because of
(17:33):
the size and price of the turtles, they were often
the centerpiece of a banquet, and people might have even
purchased tickets to attend where there were these turtles at
the centerpiece, to see what all the fuss was about. Um.
I read some of these events were called turtle frolics.
(17:54):
Turtle frolic turtle frolics. Sure, yes, And it wasn't just
private citizens either. Hotels and restaurants would run ads about
their turtle offerings. Yeah. I saw that some right hotels
and restaurants would um would take a turtle shell from
(18:15):
a previous uh frolic. I suppose, um, and uh and
paint like on the shell like hey, basically like, hey,
we have turtle soup here, come check it out, um,
and hang the shell outside. And that was part of
the I mean they would might also run and add
on a newspaper that was not printed on turtle shell. Um.
But yeah, yeah, and and right. People would keep them
(18:38):
in like big tanks, um until they were ready for use.
And so that was kind of part of the draw
because you get get to see this turtle um. In
In eight I read there was a dinner held in
London for four hundred guests that served pounds of turtle. Wow.
It was a whole thing, sole thing. Oh. By the
(19:03):
eighteen sixties, companies in Texas were canning green turtle okay,
all right, um, and yeah it became this whole thing.
It became like a cultural benchmark that anyone of like
a certain level of sophistication was expected to to know
about and to have had. Um. A Swedish traveler who
(19:25):
visited the United States in the eighteen sixties went to
New Orleans and um was trying to write home about gumbo,
all right, and he used turtle soup as this this benchmark. Yeah.
He said that Gumbo is the crown of all the
savory and remarkable soups in the world, a regular lixir
of life of the substantial kind. He who has once
(19:46):
eaten gumbo may look down disdainfully upon the most genuine
turtle soup. Who wow, yeah, what a bird? Well uh.
Because of their popularity, turtles were hunted to the brink
(20:09):
of extinction, and because of that, the price of turtle
meat skyrocketed like mind bogglingly so um, pushing turtle meat
out of the price range for most folks. And it
was already like yeah um. Not to mention, most recipes
at the time for turtle meat were extremely complicated and
(20:32):
time consuming, Like some of them were five to six
pages for a recipe, so that's a lot of also time,
yes um, handle glasses. Edition of The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy included some of the earliest English
recipes of turtle with some focusing on the fins, on
the entrails, on the belly, the back of the shell.
(20:55):
Um and the soup. And the soup in this book
is a recognizable version of what we still eat today.
It's a it's a veal broth with with turtle meat.
M clove, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, madeira wine thickened with yeah
yeah um. In her seventeen sixty nine works, the experienced
English housekeeper Elizabeth Raffold wrote, the first course should be
(21:19):
of turtle only when it is dressed in this manner,
but when it was with other victuals, it should be
in three different dishes. But this way I have often
dressed them and have given great satisfaction, satisfaction with the
capital as. I don't know if that was like in
the book. That was just, but I hope that it
was in the book Capital as satisfaction, Capital as satisfaction.
(21:41):
I love it should be turtle only, otherwise I am
out um. But kind of the point being when that
recipe was included in a lot of the articles I
read that it was for the well to do. It
was like a part of the meal. It was just
way you had turtle. Um. Some early recipes called for
(22:04):
including the turtle's blood after bleeding it into into the soup,
and a significant number of American and English cookbooks from
this time included five or more recipes for turtle, and
some people think that's because it was kind of complicated
to cook or to make like it. It did have
a lot of pieces and a sure and yeah, and
you know, like like where someone might more easily know
(22:27):
what to do with like a chicken, right, there needed
to be some explanation about how to butcher a turtle, right, yeah, yeah, yes, Okay,
So we're seeing this decline in in turtle, the turtle population,
we're seeing this really high price. Um, this is where
we get mock turtle soup. Um. And yeah, it's right
(22:49):
in the name. It's just basically like trying to find
substitution for turtle. That's close enough. Um. Cooks and chefs
experimented until they arrived at a soup that imitated the
flavor and texture of turtle soup. And yeah, it was
typically a combo of calf's head at the time and
light vegetables. Um. And some even found a way to
make this mock turtle soup green to further mimic the
(23:10):
popular dish. UM. But a note too, it wasn't easy
to make either, and it wasn't necessarily inexpensive Nope, just
less wildly expensive. Right. Uh. And apparently the US government
played a role in pushing this mock turtle soup to
convince the American public who were previously wary of awful
(23:32):
and you can see your awful episode about that um
to consume it and to pay for it. Uh. And
it worked for a while, but by the end of
World War Two, people were really looking to return to
things like beef, hamburgers and steaks. Sure well, A recipe
published in four going a bit back instructed followers to
(23:53):
clean and boil calf's head until tender, and then you
would add in veal, ham foul and wine to the mix,
sometimes with meatballs and hard boiled eggs. It's very rich
sounding to me. Um. Other people experimented with various beef
organs to achieve the taste and texture of turtle, but
cast's head was still Yeah, it was generally deemed the
(24:15):
best substitute. However, Mark turtle soup wasn't the only solution
to this shortage of turtles. People in the US also
started turning to local varieties of turtle as well, um,
including the terrapin, a species of turtle native to the
southern and eastern parts of the United States. I think
(24:37):
this story is a little bit hard to pin down,
because I'm pretty sure people were eating these types of
turtles for free. Um. But but this is when people
were like, wait a minute, we could make money off
of this anyway. Um. In eighteen thirty two, a British
actress visiting Philadelphia wrote, came home and supped. I had
(24:59):
eaten nothing since or a clock, and was famished for
I do not like stewed oysters and terrapins, which are
the refreshments invariably handed round at an American evening party.
And then she went on to write of her father,
quote set off with colonel for Hoboken, a place across
the water, famous once for dueling, but now the favorite
resort of a turtle eating club who go there every
(25:21):
Tuesday to cook and swallow turtle. Oh my, oh my. Um.
A butcher from New York in the nineteenth century, I
wrote about the diamondback terrapin that they were quote the
best of the turtle tribe. They are usually cooked with
a shell on for the various dishes, and considered best
(25:43):
and fattest. In the months of November, December, and January.
Female turtles were preferred both for the meat and for
their eggs, which reviewed as almost a delicacy. But you
can already see the issue right here with the turtle population. Yeah. Um.
Some chefs from the time created a whole reputation on
(26:05):
being able to cook terrapin. Yeah, and apparently President Taft
was a fan. Um. He commissioned a chef specifically for
his turtle soup, and the chef called this Taft Terrapin Soup.
It involved a turtle, four pounds of veal and was
served with champagne. Wow. Oh fancy um. But yeah, it
(26:30):
wasn't long before terrapins were endangered too by about the
early twentieth century um, and this led some chefs and
food writers to press for less people to consume them
unless they had a quote refined palette to appreciate them. Um.
In their minds, the substitutes were good enough to fool
most people. Um. Here's a quote from the time. The
(26:54):
diamondbacked terrapin is wasted on anyone save an epicure of
very discriminating ballet, and even on him, unless it profit
first by the service of the culinary adept. For the
difference in flesh between the true diamond back and many
masquerading counterfeits is so slight that only the combination of
high professional skill and a keen palette justifies the enormous
(27:17):
difference in price. The flush of the diamond back and
various of its substitutes is alike in being highly gelatinous
and and owing fame chiefly to its adaptability and quick
response to skillful cooking. Wow. Yeah, all right, such a
like what I mean, I get it. But it's also
(27:39):
like day, like all right, I guess I won't eat
that diamond back terrapin. Like that's no, nope, no problem,
you keep it. You keep it. Man, you know a
lot more than me, clearly, don't man displain my turtle
to me. But like all right, um heck uh. But
you know, like there there was a little bit of
(28:00):
a panic um Like in nineteen o two, the US
Bureau of Fisheries got Congress to pour millions of dollars
into terrapin farming research. They were like, we are, we
are running out of terrapins. We need them for our soup.
What are we going to do? Right? Yes? So there
was also another turtle that people turned to for the
(28:23):
soup in the US, and that is the alligator snapping turtle. Uh.
And it became so popular as a soup ingredient that
it almost led to their extinction in the nineteen sixties
and seventies. According to one collectors of these turtles in Georgia, Um,
they were gathering a ton from a river in Georgia
every day, every day at their peak, and they stopped
(28:46):
when the population had dwindled to the point that it
just wasn't worth their while. Yeah. Um. At one point,
Campbell Soup offered turtle soup just like right along tomato souper,
right alongside. Uh. They did discontinue it by the nineteen sixties,
(29:07):
and by the nineteen sixties even mock turtle soup was
fairly rare. Uh. But yeah, we have to step back
again because we've got to talk about prohibition is yeah,
clearly clearly because it actually played a role in the
conservation of the turtle species and the decline of turtle
(29:28):
soup in the US because sherry was a main ingredient
and many turtle super surpees. Yeah, and the downfall of
turtle soup um was really due to this one to
punch between prohibition and the Great Depression, Like you couldn't
get sherry and turtle was this premium ingredient at this
time when many could not afford the expense. Um, turtles
(29:51):
were going for the equivalent of like a hundred bucks
apiece at the time. H m hmmm. However, through all
of the local turtle was still this subsistence food, Like
like I said earlier, they're kind of free if you
could find. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so go for turtles. Because
(30:13):
of that, became such a key source of meat during
the Great Depression South that they were called Hoover chicken
after the President. Yeah. Um. Something else that didn't help,
as mentioned at the top, animated turtles or otherwise like
cultural turtles that we fell in love with, like Franklin
(30:35):
and Girdle, the Ninja turtles, crush turtle talk with crush um,
and I would say for a lot of people, and
myself included, they kind of became like when you think
of endangered species, you think of the turtle, the turtles
special times of that entire movement. Yeah, exactly, So that
(30:58):
was certainly something that people It was on people's minds
when it came to this dish. Um. In two thousand four,
Louisiana illegalized the commercial collection of alligator snapping turtles. Um.
Restaurants in the state that still offer traditional turtle soups
source their turtles from farms and not wild populations. That's
kind of an older number, So I would love to
(31:18):
know how that's going. Um yeah, because it is from
what I understand, kind of as you said at the top, Lauren,
relegated to certain areas and restaurants, um and kind of
subject to certain rules. And I feel like they know,
they understand that a lot of people do have this,
(31:39):
like but Frank on the turtle right, not crush? What
about turtle? Doc? Don't you know about turtles are friends
not food? Yeah? Um? Right, No, I mean you know,
like like I I had a crush on Donna Tello,
like any normal child growing of course, so indisputable, gosh
(32:06):
um but but but right yeah, so and and and
there were like a bunch of laws that went into
effect in the nineteen seventies that um that prevented the
wild collection of turtles. Um. So yeah yeah, And I know, um,
climate change as always has not helped, um, certainly not.
(32:29):
And also I would love for listeners so you can
We've been pretty much focusing on like English speaking world
and New Orleans specifically, but I know that other cultures
people eat them as well. So if you can write
in about that, that'd be great. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
That this specific phenomenon of like English turtle soup and
(32:49):
then right like like early American turtle soup that has
persisted UM is extremely specific. UM, but oh my goodness,
I want to hear about all of the other turtle
dishes around the world and how and whether or not
other people messed up their turtle populations as seriously as
we did. Yes, we certainly did. We certainly did. Ah. Well, uh,
(33:15):
I think that's what we have to say about turtle
soup for now. We we do. We do have some
listener mail for you, though, and we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
one more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
(33:35):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with Oh my goodness. I was going to
do turtle talk, but then I should do turtle talk,
but that would be like a surfing dude boys. Okay, yeah, no, no,
(33:56):
this this this one was good. This one was yeah. There,
I enjoyed it, and I wish that we had that
this was a visual medium, because I will say that
Annie's gesticulation during that um mirroring the movement of a
turtle of a sea turtle was very very good. Thank
you well. I have to give you as many tips
as like, Hey, I know it's not easy, so I
(34:22):
hope it communicated, but I needed it to. It's an
adventure every time. It certainly is. Vivian wrote, I haven't
listened in a long while and finally caught up on
three episodes last night while cooking dinner. Didn't realize till
then how much I missed your voices and banter. Regarding lettuce,
(34:43):
I think an extremely underrated way of eating lettuce is
actually blanching it or adding it to light soups. Seems
sacrilegious to apply heat to a salad vegetable. I know
that's what I thought when my grandma first served it
in a chicken soup. But cooking it actually really brings
out a sweetness, as happens with other veggie. They retain
their crunch quite well even when cooked. They're amenable to
(35:03):
stir frying or even grilling too. Romane lettuce is quite
similar and in the same genus as a choy literally vegetable,
a which can be served stir fried, steamed in soups
in Chinese cuisine, So no wonder my grandma thought nothing
of applying the same methods to the same salad green.
Regarding lotus root, thank you for featuring one of my
(35:25):
favorite veggies. I love them every which way, especially in
pork ripe, soup, in hot pot, and as dessert. As
you mentioned, lotus seeds are also an excellent addition to
soups and porridges. Lighten flavor, creamy of texture. There's a
beautiful idiom about the lotus root. It literally translates to
lotus brakes silk connects, and refers to how when you
(35:46):
break a lotus root, they're often silk like stringing fibers
that maintain a tenuous connection between the two halves. It's
a metaphor for a relationship that has been ended, but
where the two parties still retain feelings for each other,
still think of each other. Regarding Limburger, just wanted to
add that I too, deeply enjoy so called smelly food.
(36:08):
My favorite cheese is a pois, an orange, dry and
soft cheese that is supposed to be stinky, but to
me is merely pungent. Same goes for Durian. I don't
think it smells like socks or garbage. At all. It
just smells strongly, like the promise of an incomparable complexity
and strength of flavor. If you haven't tried it, I
highly recommend fermented tofu curd sometimes considered Chinese cheese. One
(36:31):
Jeff is the go to brand and it can come
in a variety of different flavors. I'm currently going through
a jar of great blocks dubbed stinky tofu. May the
new year bring you lots of new deliciousness. Thank you.
Oh I've had a lovely stinky tofu. I really like it. Yeah, no,
(36:53):
I write I I enjoy stuff like that. Um, it's right.
It's maybe not every day all the time constant, but
certainly as like oh oh that's that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah.
Like I said, I'm pretty sensitive to smell, but if
I can like get past the smell, then I love,
like quote stinky things as well. They usually do have
(37:16):
like the flavor doesn't match the smell in a really
interesting way. I love. Oh no, absolutely absolutely. The smell
is usually so much stronger than the flavor, and so
then you're like, oh, this is nice, this is like
sort of mild yes, yes, yes, yes, Um I am
Durian is part of our feast. It's been there forever.
We will try it. I want to try it. Um. Also,
(37:37):
I apologize if I mispronounced anything in there, but I
tried my best. And also I love that idiom right,
Lotus brakes silk connects. That's very I love that beautiful.
And and yeah, grilled grilled lettuces are so good. Yes,
one of my favorite things to do. M agreed well,
(38:00):
Anne wrote, thanks to your episode on benito flakes, we
have discovered a new favorite snack for our two year old.
She is obsessed with ungeary filled with soy sauce, Benita
flakes and prey cocke. Um. I'm sure if you actually
enjoy kids, but here she is going full feral on
that combination in a bowl. Um. Maybe one day she
will eat a vegetable too. Okay. And and this, you know,
(38:24):
came with a very cute video of a baby going
to absolute town. Absolutely, I love it. Honestly. One of
my very favorite things about like young children is their
food taste, because they can be so specific. You can
be like so picky and then eat a thing that
(38:44):
I've never heard of and it's the very right, It's delightful. Um. Yeah, no,
I love other people's kids. Other people's kids are great
and like not that I have children that I dislike.
I don't have any kids. I don't want any kids.
I but but no, but other people's it's our torrism.
And this one is very cute. Thank you. That's yes,
(39:05):
and that's a great snack. I mean that I would
eat that today. I would love that. Yeah, I would
do I would that. That could very well be a
video of me. It could be. I've been known to
go feral on my meals as well. Well. Thanks to
both of those listeners for writing in. If you would
(39:26):
like to write to us, you can or email as
hello at favorite pod dot com. We are also on
social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and
Instagram at savor pod, and we do hope to hear
from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(39:49):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have
an episode for you about turtle soup. Yes, and what
a wild ride it is? Oh my heck, yeah, yeah,
this is right. This is one of those ones where
like I was like, oh, yeah, this is a okay.
So so like Marta Grass coming up and I was like,
(00:29):
all right, Like, what's a dish that New Orleans is
famous for that we haven't really dug into yet. Uh,
Commander's Palace is sort of famous for having turtle soup.
You had some moile we were there, Um, let's talk
about that. And then you get into the history and
it's just bonkers. It's just like what the heck we're
humans up to? What were they doing? And why? Holy heck? Yes? Yes,
(00:55):
And it was one of the times where we kept
having to remind ourselves we are a food show. Yeah,
turtles are cool and weird. It was difficult listeners, it really, yes. Um.
I just before we started, I had to like close
(01:15):
a side quest tab that I had just opened about tortoiseshell,
like as a material um, because we have to record
this episode and I can't today. I cannot today. Were
a food show ostensibly. Ostensibly we do have some fun facts.
We did bad facts this one. UM. I did. Just
(01:39):
remember before we did this, some of you listeners know,
I know, Lauren knows, I have not a great history
with pets. Um, you're no faults of my own, I
would like to say, but some of it was fault
of my own. This was all like as a young child,
I did have a pet turtle. Um. I believe his
(02:00):
aim was it was one of those like really bad
puns like Shelly. I don't think it was Shelly, but
it was like that one level. I had a pet
turtle and my older brother had a pet snake and
we went on a vacation and we bought them both
with us. Oh yeah, that's ambitious, it certainly was. And uh,
(02:23):
We're going to go out to lunch, and I put
up this whole big fuss about like, look, we can't
leave my turtle with the snake because the snake will
kill my turtle and it will be so tragic. And
my parents were like, that's really not how it works.
They'll be fine. Um. So we kept them in the
same like aquarium situation, and we returned from lunch and
(02:51):
both were dead because my turtle had tried to eat
the snake and choked. And so yeah, more turtles. UM,
I'm sorry that I just laughed so hard at that.
(03:11):
Um no, it's pretty funny hindsight. I'm sorry to the
turtle land the snake. Do you do harshly sneak? It
was the turtle that was the threat. I yeah, no.
And turtles yeah, um, turtles have a lot of ire
in their hearts. Um, they do not like us, and
I think that this history will reveal why. It will.
(03:32):
Indeed it will indeed, uh to kind of give us
an up note after that story, I also recently hung
out with a good friend of my friend of the show, Marissa,
and it's it's a long, confusing, convoluted story, but essentially
she just said in the middle of a conversation, uh,
that's like turtle talk, and expected us all to know
(03:55):
what she was talking about. And it took, I would say,
a solid set the minutes before we got to the
bottom of what she was talking about, which is Crush,
the animated turtle from Finding Nemo has this thing called
turtle talk at Disney World where he talks to you
m turtle talk. And I bring it up because this
(04:19):
is actually something that came up in the research, a
lot of sort of this like cutification or anthropomorphizing of
turtles in the story of turtle soup and why it
sort of fell out of favor. But it just made
me laugh because she was so certain we would all
know what turtle talk was, Like, clearly it's turtle talk obviously, right. Um, yeah, no,
(04:40):
that's not I had not heard of that before either,
So I'm glad, thank you for elucidating um. Always. Yeah,
it was very funny. It was one of those conversations
I wish I had recorded. Um, But all right, Uh,
you can see our New Orleans mini series for more
few popular during Mardi Gras, just kind of a general
(05:03):
contextualization history of that culinary scene. And yes, I did
have some I had some turtle soup when we were there.
But I guess this brings us to our question. I
suppose it does in a very interesting way. Yes, turtle soup.
(05:25):
What is it? Well, turtle soup is a category of
soups made with turtle meat, though these days a mock
turtle soup is probably more common in a lot of
places um, which is a category of soups made with
turtle substitutes, and of course, like making a meat into
a soup, can take just about infinite forms, depending on
the exact cut of meat in question and what other
(05:48):
ingredients you incorporate and how you season it. And indeed,
various cultures around the world make all sorts of soups
using turtles, but in the English speaking world, and specifically
in the US and extra specifically in New Orleans, a
turtle soup often refers to a a hardy tomato based
soup that's thickened with a with a toasty rou season
(06:11):
with worcestera shear sauce and aliens um and sweet and
spicy peppers, brightened with lemon and parsley, and smoothed out
and sort of sweetened with sherry upon serving. All with
this with this rich undercurrent of turtle stock and little
bits of meat um mock. Turtle soups usually use beef
or veal as a substitute. And like you know how,
(06:32):
you know how some soups are almost like a gravy
kind of um, like a sipping gravy. It's it's, it's,
it's one of those um it's it's one of those
uh savory and silky and stick to your bones like
a like a meaty tomato soup like gumbo. Took a
hard left at Albuquerque and now it's not sure where
(06:52):
the heck it is. Um it's it's old fashioned and
a little fussy in a way that also feels um
homey and and modern to me, which to me is
just absolutely New Orleans. Like that is the vibe. Yeah, yeah,
I agree. It's got like all these kind of steps,
(07:14):
like the adding of the sherry at the end that
feels very New Orleans to me, kind of that final
touch all right, yeah, and like and having write like
a tradition around it, having like at like it's not
just soup like you right, you have right right, Yeah,
Like there's uh not in every place, but in a
lot of places. Area's kind of a serving whole yeah,
ritual around serving at the soup love it um Okay.
(07:39):
So turtle is a darker type of meat with them
a richness like like a chicken thigh or pork, but
a little bit of the chew and brininess and sweetness
of like clam. Yeah. Um, it's been compared to to
frog legs if you're familiar with those, and turtle turtle
itself is gonna be a whole different episode or series
(08:01):
of episodes at some point. Um but but yeah, these
are usually um aquatic or semi aquatic reptiles with an
internal skeletal structure and the large external shell that's fused
on the types of turtles used today can vary. It's
often snapping turtle. Um. Traditionally speaking, you would make a
stock from like bone in turtle and then use that
(08:22):
stock in creating the soup. For mock turtle soup, you're
probably using beef stock, and to build the flavor and
the body of the soup, Yeah, you start with a
room um, which is butter and flour cooked together to
make in this case like a toast colored paste um.
Then add a version of merpoi or dice Aarabatic vegetables
that's called trinity or holy trinity, which consists of onion
(08:43):
and celery and bell pepper um. After they soften, you
start adding stock until you approach the consistency that you're
going for, and also add in whatever meat you're using,
either ground or chopped um, plus crushed tomatoes or maybe
tomato juice and your seasonings. Seasonings can vary that worce
to shear sauce, Cayenne, pepper, paprika, nutmeg, and cinnamon are
(09:04):
all pretty common. Um. And then yeah, after simmering everything together,
you finished with stuff that you don't want to to
to get cooked down. Um, lemon juice and or zest, parsley,
maybe some chopped hard boiled eggs and some dry sherry. Um.
The sherry can also be added at the table if
you are yes going for that ritual kind of situation.
(09:24):
For mock turtle soup, the meat might be ground beef
or chopped veal or um the meat pulled from a
boiled calf's head um, which is like really specific when winter.
When turtle meat first became real expensive, calf's head was
considered like the best substitute. Although these days it's probably
just as difficult to get a hold of. So yeah,
(09:47):
mileage may very um. If you are looking for turtle meat, UM,
check a check your local Asian supermarket. Um. But you
can also buy it online. Yeah. And yeah, turtle soup
these days is mostly served places that are like marketing
a historical sort of vibe. In cities like New Orleans
or Philadelphia. It can be an appetizer or a main course. Um.
(10:10):
In some places it might be called snapper soup or
terrapin soup, based on the species of turtle that was
traditionally used in that area. Mm hmmm mmmm well what
about the nutrition? It depends, It depends. It's a soup,
it depends on what you put in it. Um. But
but I will say that, like generally there's like this
(10:33):
is like a real heavy soup. So there's like a
lot of butter involved, which is great tasting. Um. Uh,
it's you know, I don't eat eat eat a vegetable.
You know, turtle is not a vegetable. Kind a moment
where I like, wait a minute, Oh yeah, firing on
all cylinders today, Oh yeah, oh yeah, we have a
(10:56):
couple of numbers slash facts for yeah, okay, alright, so
like yeah, we have like one bullet point of numbers. Um.
As of two thousand and eight, China was farming um
three hundred to six hundred million turtles a year UM
worth some seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Yeah. Um.
(11:18):
The mock turtle was featured in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
um when she goes through the through the keyhole and
hangs out with right, the mock turtle and the and
the griffin, and they have like a silly race and
the mouse tells its long sad tale and then she
cries a lot um and they all float away honestly
(11:40):
of her tears. Oh wow, that's such a fun thing
to hear, kind of about a context. I really liked it. Yeah.
As we discussed in our Alice episode, describing anything from
those books is uh fun task, difficult, fun, strange task.
(12:01):
Yeah yeah, yeah, um, alright, one one more? Okay, So
as a riff on the candies that are called turtles,
which are like chocolate covered like bits of caramel and nuts. Yeah,
Ben and Jerry's had an ice cream flavor in the
early twenty ADS called turtle soup. Oh, turtle soup. Yeah, yeah,
(12:25):
I forgot about that. My dad used to get me
turtles every Christmas. They were good, they were good. I've
told the story before. But I would always get the
dark chocolate ones, right, no chocolate ones, and my younger
brother would get the white chocolate ones. Yeah turtles. Well, wow,
we have quite the history for you. Oh heck, we do, okay,
(12:47):
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break for a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
thank you. And uh so turtles, oh dear, Yeah, that's
(13:11):
gonna be a whole episode, probably a whole different podcasts there. Fascinating,
honestly fascinating, and they're very very old, and they're like
frequently put in the same kind of category of like dinosaurs.
That's cool. Like I've found some accounts that said that
they're about a hundred and ten million years old sea turtles,
(13:31):
specifically aquatic turtles, um, although some pretty recent developments I
think from put them at closer to two hundred and
thirty million years old. Okay, alright, cool, yeah, okay, so
they've been doing what they've been doing for for just
a second here for a hot second. Um, Well, archaeological
(13:55):
evidence shows that Paleolithic people were probably eating turtles and
tortoise is as long as four hundred thousand years ago
and what's now Israel. Um so ah, yes, turtles have
been around for a while and we've been eating them
for a while. Yes, And this was one of those
ones where to me, it just makes sense wherever turtles
(14:17):
where people were probably eating them. I couldn't like find
a lot of sources about it, but I imagine, Yeah,
if turtles were around, people were probably like, can I
eat that? It doesn't move that fast? Let's try. Yeah, exactly. Um.
Local turtles had been a key part of the diets
of Indigenous Americans for centuries prior to European colonization. Um.
(14:39):
But yeah, jumping wetead turtle soup. Turtle soup became popular
in the seventeen hundreds. According to some sources, British soldiers
on the return voyage from the Caribbean would catch wild
turtles um as a source of protein. Um. And they
would also transport some of these turtles back home, where
rich people readily bought them up, snash them up, um,
(15:02):
serving them at these fancy dinner parties and celebrations. At
the height of the turtle trade, Britain was importing fifteen
thousand turtles from the Caribbean a year. But yeah, this
was a far cry from their subsistence beginnings. Yeah. Historian
India mandel Kom wrote the green sea turtle was without
(15:24):
doubt the most expensive status Latin and morally contested feat
of eighteenth century English cuisine. Like by the seventeen fifties,
eating turtle was a huge status symbol and like vaguely
patriotic for the English because like they had successfully colonized
(15:45):
the Caribbean and they could afford to import this kind
of weird animal from there and then eat it. Uh
So it was really wrapped up in this kind of
like nationalistic pride about colonization, interesting interest in giving what
happens with like New Orleans and France and England anyway,
(16:08):
huh okay, Well, this dishes popularity extended to the well
to do in the American colonies, um, and it was
adapted based on region two. Um. They even played a
main role like turtle soup UM. And turtles also played
a main role in some post revolution American dishes for
(16:28):
the likes of John Adams. And apparently there was an
elite Hoboken Turtle Club formed and President Lincoln allegedly had
turtle soup at his inaugural feast. Like it was a
very yeah, I kind of had this like or this
(16:50):
mystike fancy turtles. In Philadelphia, for instance, people would add
sherry just before serving um and at the time in
that area, turtle soup generally consisted of big green sea turtles. Yeah.
And these had to be brought in from the coast, um,
and possibly from further down south. Their their fat layer
(17:13):
has this greenish tinge that might have kind of colored
the soup a little bit. I'm not sure, y. Yeah,
which was the thing? Which was the thing you wanted?
The well, some people wanted that green tinge? Yeah. Um.
And these turtles could vary wildly in size, but generally
fell between fifty to three hundred pounds. And because of
(17:33):
the size and price of the turtles, they were often
the centerpiece of a banquet, and people might have even
purchased tickets to attend where there were these turtles at
the centerpiece, to see what all the fuss was about. Um.
I read some of these events were called turtle frolics.
(17:54):
Turtle frolic turtle frolics. Sure, yes, And it wasn't just
private citizens either. Hotels and restaurants would run ads about
their turtle offerings. Yeah. I saw that some right hotels
and restaurants would um would take a turtle shell from
(18:15):
a previous uh frolic. I suppose, um, and uh and
paint like on the shell like hey, basically like, hey,
we have turtle soup here, come check it out, um,
and hang the shell outside. And that was part of
the I mean they would might also run and add
on a newspaper that was not printed on turtle shell. Um.
But yeah, yeah, and and right. People would keep them
(18:38):
in like big tanks, um until they were ready for use.
And so that was kind of part of the draw
because you get get to see this turtle um. In
In eight I read there was a dinner held in
London for four hundred guests that served pounds of turtle. Wow.
It was a whole thing, sole thing. Oh. By the
(19:03):
eighteen sixties, companies in Texas were canning green turtle okay,
all right, um, and yeah it became this whole thing.
It became like a cultural benchmark that anyone of like
a certain level of sophistication was expected to to know
about and to have had. Um. A Swedish traveler who
(19:25):
visited the United States in the eighteen sixties went to
New Orleans and um was trying to write home about gumbo,
all right, and he used turtle soup as this this benchmark. Yeah.
He said that Gumbo is the crown of all the
savory and remarkable soups in the world, a regular lixir
of life of the substantial kind. He who has once
(19:46):
eaten gumbo may look down disdainfully upon the most genuine
turtle soup. Who wow, yeah, what a bird? Well uh.
Because of their popularity, turtles were hunted to the brink
(20:09):
of extinction, and because of that, the price of turtle
meat skyrocketed like mind bogglingly so um, pushing turtle meat
out of the price range for most folks. And it
was already like yeah um. Not to mention, most recipes
at the time for turtle meat were extremely complicated and
(20:32):
time consuming, Like some of them were five to six
pages for a recipe, so that's a lot of also time,
yes um, handle glasses. Edition of The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy included some of the earliest English
recipes of turtle with some focusing on the fins, on
the entrails, on the belly, the back of the shell.
(20:55):
Um and the soup. And the soup in this book
is a recognizable version of what we still eat today.
It's a it's a veal broth with with turtle meat.
M clove, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, madeira wine thickened with yeah
yeah um. In her seventeen sixty nine works, the experienced
English housekeeper Elizabeth Raffold wrote, the first course should be
(21:19):
of turtle only when it is dressed in this manner,
but when it was with other victuals, it should be
in three different dishes. But this way I have often
dressed them and have given great satisfaction, satisfaction with the
capital as. I don't know if that was like in
the book. That was just, but I hope that it
was in the book Capital as satisfaction, Capital as satisfaction.
(21:41):
I love it should be turtle only, otherwise I am
out um. But kind of the point being when that
recipe was included in a lot of the articles I
read that it was for the well to do. It
was like a part of the meal. It was just
way you had turtle. Um. Some early recipes called for
(22:04):
including the turtle's blood after bleeding it into into the soup,
and a significant number of American and English cookbooks from
this time included five or more recipes for turtle, and
some people think that's because it was kind of complicated
to cook or to make like it. It did have
a lot of pieces and a sure and yeah, and
you know, like like where someone might more easily know
(22:27):
what to do with like a chicken, right, there needed
to be some explanation about how to butcher a turtle, right, yeah, yeah, yes, Okay,
So we're seeing this decline in in turtle, the turtle population,
we're seeing this really high price. Um, this is where
we get mock turtle soup. Um. And yeah, it's right
(22:49):
in the name. It's just basically like trying to find
substitution for turtle. That's close enough. Um. Cooks and chefs
experimented until they arrived at a soup that imitated the
flavor and texture of turtle soup. And yeah, it was
typically a combo of calf's head at the time and
light vegetables. Um. And some even found a way to
make this mock turtle soup green to further mimic the
(23:10):
popular dish. UM. But a note too, it wasn't easy
to make either, and it wasn't necessarily inexpensive Nope, just
less wildly expensive. Right. Uh. And apparently the US government
played a role in pushing this mock turtle soup to
convince the American public who were previously wary of awful
(23:32):
and you can see your awful episode about that um
to consume it and to pay for it. Uh. And
it worked for a while, but by the end of
World War Two, people were really looking to return to
things like beef, hamburgers and steaks. Sure well, A recipe
published in four going a bit back instructed followers to
(23:53):
clean and boil calf's head until tender, and then you
would add in veal, ham foul and wine to the mix,
sometimes with meatballs and hard boiled eggs. It's very rich
sounding to me. Um. Other people experimented with various beef
organs to achieve the taste and texture of turtle, but
cast's head was still Yeah, it was generally deemed the
(24:15):
best substitute. However, Mark turtle soup wasn't the only solution
to this shortage of turtles. People in the US also
started turning to local varieties of turtle as well, um,
including the terrapin, a species of turtle native to the
southern and eastern parts of the United States. I think
(24:37):
this story is a little bit hard to pin down,
because I'm pretty sure people were eating these types of
turtles for free. Um. But but this is when people
were like, wait a minute, we could make money off
of this anyway. Um. In eighteen thirty two, a British
actress visiting Philadelphia wrote, came home and supped. I had
(24:59):
eaten nothing since or a clock, and was famished for
I do not like stewed oysters and terrapins, which are
the refreshments invariably handed round at an American evening party.
And then she went on to write of her father,
quote set off with colonel for Hoboken, a place across
the water, famous once for dueling, but now the favorite
resort of a turtle eating club who go there every
(25:21):
Tuesday to cook and swallow turtle. Oh my, oh my. Um.
A butcher from New York in the nineteenth century, I
wrote about the diamondback terrapin that they were quote the
best of the turtle tribe. They are usually cooked with
a shell on for the various dishes, and considered best
(25:43):
and fattest. In the months of November, December, and January.
Female turtles were preferred both for the meat and for
their eggs, which reviewed as almost a delicacy. But you
can already see the issue right here with the turtle population. Yeah. Um.
Some chefs from the time created a whole reputation on
(26:05):
being able to cook terrapin. Yeah, and apparently President Taft
was a fan. Um. He commissioned a chef specifically for
his turtle soup, and the chef called this Taft Terrapin Soup.
It involved a turtle, four pounds of veal and was
served with champagne. Wow. Oh fancy um. But yeah, it
(26:30):
wasn't long before terrapins were endangered too by about the
early twentieth century um, and this led some chefs and
food writers to press for less people to consume them
unless they had a quote refined palette to appreciate them. Um.
In their minds, the substitutes were good enough to fool
most people. Um. Here's a quote from the time. The
(26:54):
diamondbacked terrapin is wasted on anyone save an epicure of
very discriminating ballet, and even on him, unless it profit
first by the service of the culinary adept. For the
difference in flesh between the true diamond back and many
masquerading counterfeits is so slight that only the combination of
high professional skill and a keen palette justifies the enormous
(27:17):
difference in price. The flush of the diamond back and
various of its substitutes is alike in being highly gelatinous
and and owing fame chiefly to its adaptability and quick
response to skillful cooking. Wow. Yeah, all right, such a
like what I mean, I get it. But it's also
(27:39):
like day, like all right, I guess I won't eat
that diamond back terrapin. Like that's no, nope, no problem,
you keep it. You keep it. Man, you know a
lot more than me, clearly, don't man displain my turtle
to me. But like all right, um heck uh. But
you know, like there there was a little bit of
(28:00):
a panic um Like in nineteen o two, the US
Bureau of Fisheries got Congress to pour millions of dollars
into terrapin farming research. They were like, we are, we
are running out of terrapins. We need them for our soup.
What are we going to do? Right? Yes? So there
was also another turtle that people turned to for the
(28:23):
soup in the US, and that is the alligator snapping turtle. Uh.
And it became so popular as a soup ingredient that
it almost led to their extinction in the nineteen sixties
and seventies. According to one collectors of these turtles in Georgia, Um,
they were gathering a ton from a river in Georgia
every day, every day at their peak, and they stopped
(28:46):
when the population had dwindled to the point that it
just wasn't worth their while. Yeah. Um. At one point,
Campbell Soup offered turtle soup just like right along tomato souper,
right alongside. Uh. They did discontinue it by the nineteen sixties,
(29:07):
and by the nineteen sixties even mock turtle soup was
fairly rare. Uh. But yeah, we have to step back
again because we've got to talk about prohibition is yeah,
clearly clearly because it actually played a role in the
conservation of the turtle species and the decline of turtle
(29:28):
soup in the US because sherry was a main ingredient
and many turtle super surpees. Yeah, and the downfall of
turtle soup um was really due to this one to
punch between prohibition and the Great Depression, Like you couldn't
get sherry and turtle was this premium ingredient at this
time when many could not afford the expense. Um, turtles
(29:51):
were going for the equivalent of like a hundred bucks
apiece at the time. H m hmmm. However, through all
of the local turtle was still this subsistence food, Like
like I said earlier, they're kind of free if you
could find. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so go for turtles. Because
(30:13):
of that, became such a key source of meat during
the Great Depression South that they were called Hoover chicken
after the President. Yeah. Um. Something else that didn't help,
as mentioned at the top, animated turtles or otherwise like
cultural turtles that we fell in love with, like Franklin
(30:35):
and Girdle, the Ninja turtles, crush turtle talk with crush um,
and I would say for a lot of people, and
myself included, they kind of became like when you think
of endangered species, you think of the turtle, the turtles
special times of that entire movement. Yeah, exactly, So that
(30:58):
was certainly something that people It was on people's minds
when it came to this dish. Um. In two thousand four,
Louisiana illegalized the commercial collection of alligator snapping turtles. Um.
Restaurants in the state that still offer traditional turtle soups
source their turtles from farms and not wild populations. That's
kind of an older number, So I would love to
(31:18):
know how that's going. Um yeah, because it is from
what I understand, kind of as you said at the top, Lauren,
relegated to certain areas and restaurants, um and kind of
subject to certain rules. And I feel like they know,
they understand that a lot of people do have this,
(31:39):
like but Frank on the turtle right, not crush? What
about turtle? Doc? Don't you know about turtles are friends
not food? Yeah? Um? Right, No, I mean you know,
like like I I had a crush on Donna Tello,
like any normal child growing of course, so indisputable, gosh
(32:06):
um but but but right yeah, so and and and
there were like a bunch of laws that went into
effect in the nineteen seventies that um that prevented the
wild collection of turtles. Um. So yeah yeah, And I know, um,
climate change as always has not helped, um, certainly not.
(32:29):
And also I would love for listeners so you can
We've been pretty much focusing on like English speaking world
and New Orleans specifically, but I know that other cultures
people eat them as well. So if you can write
in about that, that'd be great. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
That this specific phenomenon of like English turtle soup and
(32:49):
then right like like early American turtle soup that has
persisted UM is extremely specific. UM, but oh my goodness,
I want to hear about all of the other turtle
dishes around the world and how and whether or not
other people messed up their turtle populations as seriously as
we did. Yes, we certainly did. We certainly did. Ah. Well, uh,
(33:15):
I think that's what we have to say about turtle
soup for now. We we do. We do have some
listener mail for you, though, and we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
one more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
(33:35):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with Oh my goodness. I was going to
do turtle talk, but then I should do turtle talk,
but that would be like a surfing dude boys. Okay, yeah, no, no,
(33:56):
this this this one was good. This one was yeah. There,
I enjoyed it, and I wish that we had that
this was a visual medium, because I will say that
Annie's gesticulation during that um mirroring the movement of a
turtle of a sea turtle was very very good. Thank
you well. I have to give you as many tips
as like, Hey, I know it's not easy, so I
(34:22):
hope it communicated, but I needed it to. It's an
adventure every time. It certainly is. Vivian wrote, I haven't
listened in a long while and finally caught up on
three episodes last night while cooking dinner. Didn't realize till
then how much I missed your voices and banter. Regarding lettuce,
(34:43):
I think an extremely underrated way of eating lettuce is
actually blanching it or adding it to light soups. Seems
sacrilegious to apply heat to a salad vegetable. I know
that's what I thought when my grandma first served it
in a chicken soup. But cooking it actually really brings
out a sweetness, as happens with other veggie. They retain
their crunch quite well even when cooked. They're amenable to
(35:03):
stir frying or even grilling too. Romane lettuce is quite
similar and in the same genus as a choy literally vegetable,
a which can be served stir fried, steamed in soups
in Chinese cuisine, So no wonder my grandma thought nothing
of applying the same methods to the same salad green.
Regarding lotus root, thank you for featuring one of my
(35:25):
favorite veggies. I love them every which way, especially in
pork ripe, soup, in hot pot, and as dessert. As
you mentioned, lotus seeds are also an excellent addition to
soups and porridges. Lighten flavor, creamy of texture. There's a
beautiful idiom about the lotus root. It literally translates to
lotus brakes silk connects, and refers to how when you
(35:46):
break a lotus root, they're often silk like stringing fibers
that maintain a tenuous connection between the two halves. It's
a metaphor for a relationship that has been ended, but
where the two parties still retain feelings for each other,
still think of each other. Regarding Limburger, just wanted to
add that I too, deeply enjoy so called smelly food.
(36:08):
My favorite cheese is a pois, an orange, dry and
soft cheese that is supposed to be stinky, but to
me is merely pungent. Same goes for Durian. I don't
think it smells like socks or garbage. At all. It
just smells strongly, like the promise of an incomparable complexity
and strength of flavor. If you haven't tried it, I
highly recommend fermented tofu curd sometimes considered Chinese cheese. One
(36:31):
Jeff is the go to brand and it can come
in a variety of different flavors. I'm currently going through
a jar of great blocks dubbed stinky tofu. May the
new year bring you lots of new deliciousness. Thank you.
Oh I've had a lovely stinky tofu. I really like it. Yeah, no,
(36:53):
I write I I enjoy stuff like that. Um, it's right.
It's maybe not every day all the time constant, but
certainly as like oh oh that's that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah.
Like I said, I'm pretty sensitive to smell, but if
I can like get past the smell, then I love,
like quote stinky things as well. They usually do have
(37:16):
like the flavor doesn't match the smell in a really
interesting way. I love. Oh no, absolutely absolutely. The smell
is usually so much stronger than the flavor, and so
then you're like, oh, this is nice, this is like
sort of mild yes, yes, yes, yes, Um I am
Durian is part of our feast. It's been there forever.
We will try it. I want to try it. Um. Also,
(37:37):
I apologize if I mispronounced anything in there, but I
tried my best. And also I love that idiom right,
Lotus brakes silk connects. That's very I love that beautiful.
And and yeah, grilled grilled lettuces are so good. Yes,
one of my favorite things to do. M agreed well,
(38:00):
Anne wrote, thanks to your episode on benito flakes, we
have discovered a new favorite snack for our two year old.
She is obsessed with ungeary filled with soy sauce, Benita
flakes and prey cocke. Um. I'm sure if you actually
enjoy kids, but here she is going full feral on
that combination in a bowl. Um. Maybe one day she
will eat a vegetable too. Okay. And and this, you know,
(38:24):
came with a very cute video of a baby going
to absolute town. Absolutely, I love it. Honestly. One of
my very favorite things about like young children is their
food taste, because they can be so specific. You can
be like so picky and then eat a thing that
(38:44):
I've never heard of and it's the very right, It's delightful. Um. Yeah, no,
I love other people's kids. Other people's kids are great
and like not that I have children that I dislike.
I don't have any kids. I don't want any kids.
I but but no, but other people's it's our torrism.
And this one is very cute. Thank you. That's yes,
(39:05):
and that's a great snack. I mean that I would
eat that today. I would love that. Yeah, I would
do I would that. That could very well be a
video of me. It could be. I've been known to
go feral on my meals as well. Well. Thanks to
both of those listeners for writing in. If you would
(39:26):
like to write to us, you can or email as
hello at favorite pod dot com. We are also on
social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and
Instagram at savor pod, and we do hope to hear
from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(39:49):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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