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This page describes preparations historically taken to end pregnancy or "bring on the menses." These substances do not work as claimed and are seriously toxic; their use has caused poisoning and death.
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Home › The Principles of Cookery › Turtle Soup, from Dried Turtle Flesh
Turtle Soup, from Dried Turtle Flesh
Three or four days before the soup is wanted, buy a quarter of a pound of dried turtle flesh. Soak it in lukewarm water three days and three nights. Change the water every twelve hours, and if a slightly unpleasant odour arises from the flesh, rub it lightly over with salt. Whilst the soaking process is going on keep the basin containing the turtle in a warm place, and during the night let it stand in a cool oven. For the last twelve hours let the water in which it is soaked be of a good warmth. When the meat has been soaked till it has lost its gluey appearance, and is swollen and comparatively soft, cut it into neat pieces two inches square, and boil these gently for twelve hours in strong stock prepared as follows. Put a slice of lean, uncooked ham into a gallon saucepan with a pound and a half of gravy beef, a pound and a half of knuckle of veal, two onions, each one with three cloves stuck into it, a head of celery, a small turnip and carrot, as much parsley as will fill a teacup, three tea-spoonfuls of dried marjoram, three tea-spoonfuls of dried basil, one or two mushrooms if they are at hand, half a tea-spoonful of lemon thyme, half a salt-spoonful of pennyroyal, a small tea-spoonful of salt, and a small pinch of cayenne. If any chicken bones or pieces of cold roast meat are at hand, they may be added to the rest. Fill the saucepan with cold water, simmer the soup very gently for twelve hours, and remove the scum as it rises. The soup must on no account be left in the saucepan all night; but if the simmering is not finished at night the soup must be poured out into a basin, set in a cool place, and put on the fire again next day. When the soup has been reduced to two quarts, strain carefully, and remove the fat with scrupulous care. Get a pound and a half of fresh eels, cut them into pieces two inches long, and boil these in the stock. When they are tender, lift them out of the stock, and gain strain it by passing it through a jelly-bag two or three times; if necessary, clear it with white of egg. When it is clear put in the pieces of turtle flesh, and boil them gently till they are as tender as well-cooked calf's head. At the last moment add a claret-glassful of good Madeira or good golden sherry. Pour the soup into the tureen, add a few drops of lemon-juice, and it will be ready for serving. If it is necessary to clarify the soup, whisk the white of an egg with a cupful of cold water. Stir this briskly into the soup when it is just warm, let it boil, and gently lift off the scum as it rises. Draw the saucepan to the side, and let the soup simmer gently for half an hour. Let it stand a quarter of an hour to settle, and strain through a jelly-bag. If the soup has been gently simmered and carefully skimmed, it will most likely need only to be passed two or three times through a jelly-bag. If thick soup is preferred to clear soup, moisten a table-spoonful of brown thickening with a small portion of the soup. When it is quite smooth, pour it into the saucepan, and stir till it boils. When this thickening is used it will be necessary to let the saucepan stand by the side of the fire with the lid on for a short time, that the fat may rise to the surface and be removed. The eels which are stewed in the stock may be served as eel souchet, and will make a good dish. As the pieces of eel are taken out of the soup, throw them into a pan of boiling water for one minute. Lay them in a dish with as much boiling water as will cover them, put with them one or two sprigs of fresh parsley, and send brown bread and butter to table with them. Time, four or five days to prepare the soup. Probable cost, turtle flesh, 10s. per pound. Sufficient for three pints of soup.
This is a genuine recipe, but three separate elements put it beyond use in a modern kitchen: the main ingredient, one of the herbs, and the handling of the meat during soaking.
- The turtle itselfCommercial dried turtle flesh of the Victorian trade was green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) and its relatives. All sea turtles are now listed on CITES Appendix I and protected under national law in the UK, the US and the EU; trade in the meat is prohibited, and the species were driven to their present state in large part by exactly this soup trade.
- PennyroyalThe half salt-spoonful of pennyroyal is not a harmless flavouring. Pennyroyal's essential oil is rich in pulegone, which is hepatotoxic and has caused fatal liver failure; it was historically taken as an abortifacient, which is why the book's own warning banner appears above the recipe. It has no place in food.
- The soaking instructionsThe dried flesh is held in lukewarm water for three days and nights, kept in a warm place by day (the book does send the basin to a cool oven at night), with the final twelve hours at "a good warmth." Much of that time falls in the temperature band where Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium perfringens multiply fastest.
- "A slightly unpleasant odour"The direction to rub the meat with salt if it begins to smell is spoilage management, not seasoning. Salt at that concentration does not sterilise, and staphylococcal toxin in particular survives twelve hours of subsequent boiling intact.
- The overnight interruptionsThe book breaks the twelve-hour simmer overnight, pouring the stock into a basin and setting it in a cool place before returning it to the fire next day. Even so, a large volume of meat broth cooling slowly is the classic condition for Clostridium perfringens spores to germinate, and a domestic larder is not a reliable substitute for refrigeration.
- If you want the dishClear turtle soup was widely imitated in its own century by mock turtle, made from a dressed calf's head. Work from a current recipe rather than adapting this one.
- Reading the originalA claret-glassful is an approximate measure, usually reckoned at around 3 to 4 fl oz (an imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz). A jelly-bag is a fine conical cloth strainer, the ancestor of the muslin-lined sieve. "10s. per pound" is ten shillings, half a sovereign, and marks the turtle out as a very expensive ingredient indeed.
Clear turtle soup was the defining luxury of the nineteenth-century English public dinner, so firmly attached to civic feasting that the Lord Mayor's banquet and turtle soup were near-synonyms in the press. Live green turtles were shipped from the West Indies to London and Bristol and kept in tanks at the great victuallers; for kitchens that could not manage a whole turtle, dealers sold the flesh dried, which is what this recipe is designed around, and at ten shillings a pound it was among the dearest ingredients priced in a book of this kind. The elaborate reconstruction here — a rich veal and ham stock, a pound and a half of eels boiled in it for body and gelatine, the repeated passes through the jelly-bag, the final glass of Madeira — exists because dried turtle on its own yields little flavour, chiefly the gelatinous texture prized in the finished soup. The same appetite produced mock turtle from a calf's head and the tinned and paste "turtle soup" of later Victorian grocers, and it also produced the collapse of green turtle populations across the Caribbean, which is why the dish now survives mainly as a name on old menus.