Turtles all the way down!

December 21, 2007 4:34 PM

Somewhere, a while ago, somewhere on the internet (here? BoingBoing? somewhere else?) was posted a PDF (I think) of a cookbook (?) from the 19th century (?) that had various recipes used by kitchens in wealthy households. Somewhere in that cookbook was a detailed description of how to store turtles (for soup) long-term (cool, mostly dry) in stacked boxes. Please hope me find it!
posted by dmd to Food & Drink (4 answers total)

It's reasonably likely to be an early edition of Mr's Beaton's Guide to Household Management. Man those Victorians ate some disgusting and endangered stuff. Be aware that later editions of Mrs Beaton got rather expurgated, so no longer contain some material, allegedly including how to beat your servants in the correct manner. I don't have my 1st edition facsimile at the moment, otherwise I'd check for you.
posted by singingfish at 4:39 PM on December 21, 2007

Mrs Beeton on turtles. (But I don't think that's what you're looking for.)
posted by kmennie at 4:57 PM on December 21, 2007

Maybe this? There are other hits if you go to the search page and enter turtle in the ingredient search. (FPP)
posted by Rhomboid at 6:21 AM on December 22, 2007

This?

The following receipt for dressing a Turtle, having been much enquired after, was received from a cook in the Indies, where they are dressed in the utmost perfection.
Cut off the head first, and hang the turtle by one of the hindmost fins, that the blood may run from it to make the fish white. This done, cut off the fins & wash them clean; then cut off the belly shell well with meat, take out the guts and wash them very clean, and observe you turn them the right way or you will meet with a great deal of trouble. Stew the guts with a quart or three pints of the best Madeira wine, infuse half a dram of coyn* butter. Then having boiled the four fins, & taken the scales off, stew them with the guts on the belly part, which is called the collop. Take all sorts of the best sweet herbs, cut and shred them very small, and strew them over the collop. Put pieces of the best best butter, one bottle of the best Madeira wine, and a dram and a half of pepper, or coyn butter over it. Take great care it is not over baked. You may cut off collops and dress them as veal cutlets. Send your guts up in the top shell, and set it at the upper end of the table, the collops in the middle, and at the lower end, which garnish with the four fins.
This is the most proper way of dressing this fish, in any part of the Indies, or in England, approved by the best and most experienced cooks who undertake to dress them.
[From: The British Jewel, or complete housewife’s best companion … (1776)]

posted by Miko at 7:51 AM on December 22, 2007