 Chinese turtle soup | |
| Type | Soup or stew |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Various |
| Region or state | China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and United States |
| Main ingredients | Turtle meat |
Turtle soup, also known as terrapin soup, is a soup or stew made from the meat of turtles. Several versions of the soup exist in different cultures, and it is often viewed as a delicacy. [1]
The principal characteristic of turtle meat is that the broth it is cooked in becomes extremely gelatinous once cooled. Turtle meat has no characteristic taste on its own, so the flavor of turtle soup depends entirely on seasoning. Mock turtle soup is made from other gelatine-producing meat such as calf's head and calf's feet. [2]
Turtle soup gained popularity in England in the 1750s but declined rapidly about 150 years later from overfishing. [3] According to food historian Janet Clarkson, the dish, which she describes as one of several "noteworthy soups", became a symbol for civic dinners and
From 1761 to 1825 it was never absent from the London Lord Mayor's Day Banquet. It is probably not unreasonable to hold several generations of aldermen and other civic leaders responsible for eating the turtle almost to extinction. [3]
Green sea turtle first became popular in England as "sea-tortoise" circa 1728: "Its Flesh is between that of Veal, and that of a Lobster, and is extremely pleasant ... They are frequently brought to England in Tubs of Sea Water, and will keep alive a long time." [4] The earliest English recipes are for roast or boiled turtle, only later being used in a soup. About 1740–1750, it began to be widely imported to England, from Ascension Island or the West Indies. [3] Samuel Birch is credited with being the first to serve turtle soup in London, spicing it with lemons and cayennes; it quickly became immensely popular, and Lord Dudley stated, "Of British soup, turtle always takes precedence in the list of honour". [5] Giles Rose made turtle soup as follows: "Take your tortoises and cut off their heads and feet and boyl them in fair water, and when they are almost boyl'd, put to them some white wine, some sweet herbs, and a piece of bacon, and give them a brown in the frying pan with good butter, then lay upon your bread a-steeping in good strong broth, and well-seasoned; garnish the dish with green sparrow-grass [asparagus] and lemon over it." [6] [ full citation needed ] In Cookery and Domestic Economy (1862), the recipe begins as follows: "take the turtle out of the water, turn it on its back, tie its feet, cut off its head". [7] By about 1800, a good dinner portion was 2.5 kilograms (6 lb) of turtle, live weight, and in London Tavern in August, 1808, 400 men ate 1,100 kg (2,500 lb) of turtle in their dinner soup. [6] [ full citation needed ]
According to Clarkson, "It is difficult to overestimate the magnitude of the demand for turtles" during the period of the soup's popularity. As many as 15,000 turtles were shipped live to Britain from the West Indies. [3] Turtles became viewed as an fashionable and exotic delicacy, ranking alongside caviar. [2] Because of its popularity, the green turtle population plummeted, and its cost rose correspondingly. Isabella Beeton noted in 1861, "This is the most expensive soup brought to the table". [8] Thus, long before that time, mock turtle soup made from calf's head was widely adopted as a more economical substitute and became popular in its own right, with the two dishes sometimes being served at the same banquet. [3]
The sixteenth-century English country house Burghley House is one of the few places in the country where the evidence for this former delicacy is still visible. On the wall of the kitchen are a number of green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) skulls which date back to this practice. [9]
In the United States, turtle soup is a heavy, brown soup with an appearance similar to thick meat gravy. The common snapping turtle has long been the principal species used for turtle soup. [10] In this case the soup is also referred to as bookbinder soup , snapper turtle soup, [11] or simply snapper soup (not to be confused with red snapper soup, which is made from the fish red snapper). In the Chesapeake Bay, the diamondback terrapin was long the species exploited in turtle soup manufacture. Canneries processed and exported tons of product until the turtle populations collapsed. Similarly in the San Francisco Bay, the Pacific pond turtle was the base of a minor industry with the canned product sent to eastern markets by rail.
Whereas turtle soup was a royal delicacy in Europe, during the colonial period, colonists fed these abundant and easily captured animals to servants, slaves, and livestock. Eventually, slaves protested their terrapin-heavy diets and sought to mandate that terrapin be served no more than three times per week. [12]
The 27th U.S. president, William Howard Taft, hired a chef at the White House for the specific purpose of preparing turtle soup. [13]
As of 2016 [update] , various dishes made using turtle, including turtle soup, were served by a restaurant in Minnesota, mostly during Lent. The owner said that it was primarily older customers who have previously eaten turtle who order the turtle dishes; younger diners are much less interested. [14]
Eating the flesh of some marine turtles can cause a rare, but possibly lethal, type of food poisoning called chelonitoxism. [15]
Scotch broth is a soup originating in Scotland. The principal ingredients are usually barley, stewing or braising cuts of lamb, mutton or beef, root vegetables, and dried pulses. Cabbage and leeks are often added shortly before serving to preserve their texture, colour and flavours. The proportions and ingredients vary according to the recipe or availability. Scotch broth has been sold ready-prepared in tins for many years.
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but is also very similar to wider British cuisine, partly historically and partly due to the import of ingredients and ideas from the Americas, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.
Shepherd's pie, cottage pie, or in French cuisine hachis Parmentier, is a savoury dish of cooked minced meat topped with mashed potato and baked, formerly also called Sanders or Saunders. The meat used may be either previously cooked or freshly minced. The usual meats are beef or lamb. The terms shepherd's pie and cottage pie have been used interchangeably since they came into use in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, although some writers insist that a shepherd's pie should contain lamb or mutton, and a cottage pie, beef.
Offal, also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, and these lists of organs vary with culture and region, but usually exclude skeletal muscle. Offal may also refer to the by-products of milled grains, such as corn or wheat.
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, also published as Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book, is an extensive guide to running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton and first published as a book in 1861. Previously published in parts, it initially and briefly bore the title Beeton's Book of Household Management, as one of the series of guidebooks published by her husband, Samuel Beeton. The recipes were highly structured, in contrast to those in earlier cookbooks. It was illustrated with many monochrome and colour plates.
Russian cuisine is a collection of the different dishes and cooking traditions of the Russian people as well as a list of culinary products popular in Russia, with most names being known since pre-Soviet times, coming from all kinds of social circles.
Mock turtle soup is an English soup that was created in the mid-18th century as an imitation of green turtle soup. It often uses brains and organ meats such as calf's head to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original's turtle meat after the green turtles used to make the original dish were hunted nearly to extinction. In the United States, mock turtle soup eventually became more popular than the original dish and is still popular in Cincinnati. The soup is also a traditional dish in the Lower Saxony areas of Germany, where it is considered a specialty of English cuisine.
The green sea turtle, also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus Chelonia. Its range extends throughout tropical and subtropical seas around the world, with two distinct populations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but it is also found in the Indian Ocean. The common name refers to the usually green fat found beneath its carapace, due to its diet strictly being seagrass, not to the color of its carapace, which is olive to black.
Cock-a-leekie soup is a Scottish soup dish consisting of leeks and peppered chicken stock, often thickened with rice, or sometimes barley. The original recipe added prunes during cooking, and traditionalists still garnish with a julienne of prunes.
Turtling is the hunting of turtles. Turtling has been a part of human culture since as far back as the middle of the first millennium BC, where sea turtles such as the hawksbill sea turtle were eaten as delicacies in countries such as China. While consumption and hunting of turtles is less common than it was in the past, this practice is still a part of communities throughout the globe, whether done legally or illegally.
Pottage or potage is a term for a thick soup or stew made by boiling vegetables, grains, and, if available, meat or fish. It was a staple food for many centuries. The word pottage comes from the same Old French root as potage, which is a dish of more recent origin.
Hodge-podge or hotch potch is a soup or stew, usually based on diced mutton or other meat, with green and root vegetables. It is familiar in different versions in Britain and North America and is particularly associated with Scotland.
Chicken and dumplings is a Southern United States dish that consists of a chicken boiled in water, with the resulting chicken broth being used to cook dumplings by boiling. A dumpling—in this context—is a biscuit dough, which is a mixture of flour, shortening, and liquid. The dumplings are either rolled out flat, dropped, or formed into a ball.
Veal liver and bacon is a dish containing veal liver and bacon.
A toast sandwich is a sandwich in which the filling between two slices of bread is itself a thin slice of toasted bread, which may be buttered. An 1861 recipe says to add salt and pepper to taste.
The Housekeeper's Instructor was a bestselling English cookery book written by William Augustus Henderson, 1791. It ran through seventeen editions by 1823. Later editions were revised by Jacob Christopher Schnebbelie.
Modern Cookery for Private Families is an English cookery book by Eliza Acton. It was first published by Longmans in 1845, and was a best-seller, running through 13 editions by 1853, though its sales were later overtaken by Mrs Beeton. On the strength of the book, Delia Smith called Acton "the best writer of recipes in the English language", while Elizabeth David wondered why "this peerless writer" had been eclipsed by such inferior and inexperienced imitators.
China chilo is a dish of stewed mutton from 19th-century English cuisine. Stewed with onions, peas and lettuce, the mutton is served in a dish surrounded by a border of rice. Scholars believe the term China in the name alludes to this oriental ingredient, but the meaning of the term chilo remains a mystery. The dish is said to be based on a Chinese dish that 19th-century sailors described upon their return from the China Seas. Food historians speculate whether creative Victorian cooks substituted lettuce for bok choy and peas for bean sprouts.
| Articles | |
|---|---|
| Dishes | |
| Snacks and desserts | |
| Drinks | |
