Turtle soup - snapper/terrapin or any kind of slow shelled goodness

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Bassomatic

Bassomatic

HOW DO I KNOW YOU'RE NOT MAKAROV
True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
Joined
Mar 9, 2015
Happens to be a thread getting semi side tracked about this wonderful dish so I thought let's have a nice little chat about turtle soup and how darn good it is.

Turtle soup is yes, what you think it is. Turtle soup is mostly well known in the Eastern US (mainly Philadelphia area and Creole country) In this form it's mostly Snapper soup, from the common snapping turtle.

How good is Turtle soup? A president, a fat man at that hired a chef to cook just that.

Going back to Colonial times in the US the Terrapin was nearly fished out as it was such a common meal, and still a symbol of the Chesapeake bay area.

I personally love me a good snapper soup. Dash of sherry in it is traditionally at least in my area. (ok maybe 2 dashes) It's just like a good vegetable soup, but richer. Honestly if someone was to try it and not told of it's meat they could mistake it for the best vegetable soup ever.

Some areas still stock it, and more so some places ship too. My personal suggestion if you get a can is Bookbinders, or if you really feel brave : http://www.food.com/recipe/bookbinders-philadelphia-snapper-soup-130865 Good luck finding the turtle meat unless you have a pesky uninvited guest in your back yard pool.
 
It's tasty but I haven't had it in years. I need to make some.
 
Have some tortoise jelly instead

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I had softshell turtle soup prepared in the traditional Chinese fashion last week. The meat is good, but the name is a misnomer, the shell is in fact mostly bone though the outer cartilage bits are edible. The liquid part of the soup is nothing special.
 
I'm in Missouri and catch and eat turtles semi-regularly, they're usually unintended catches when catfishing. Soft shells (they're not the chinese ones, but look/taste similar) have a lighter flavor and are way easier to skin, they are also far more tender. Snappers have a bolder flavor but are harder to skin and can be a bit chewy - they are also fucking covered in parasites like a hundred times out of a hundred. I never make soup, I just grill or bake them in foil with some butter and herbs. It tastes kind of between alagator and frog legs. The soft shells also have more meat for the same size turtle because you can eat the entire long ass neck.

Killing a mad ass turtle with a knife while drunk is also kind of an adventure and I'm a bit surprised I still have all ten fingers. (I catch most of them at my grandma's lake house which is in city limits, so I can't just shoot them with a .22). Soft shells are actually more dangerious to kill because snappers can't lunge on their back, but soft shells have a neck like half or two thirds the length of their body and strike like a snake.
 
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