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How to Dress Terrapin
Terrapin, like lobster, should be alive. First wash it in a large pan of water, and drop it, head downward, into a kettle containing plenty of rapidly boiling water. Boil five or ten minutes; take it out and, with a damp cloth, rub off the white skin from the head and feet. Put it again over the fire and cover with freshly boiling water, with a teaspoonful of salt to each quart. Boil slowly until tender and the shells begin to fall away from the sides; it will sometimes take not more than twenty minutes, and it often takes forty or forty-five minutes.
When the shells can be separated take the terrapin from the water, let it cool, then cut off the nails, break the shell on the flat side, and remove the meat. Take out the insides, carefully separate the liver from the gall-bag, and put it aside, throwing away the gall, the inside muscle and tail, the head, entrails, and bladder.
Divide the legs at the joints, and cut into small pieces. Cut the liver into small pieces and put this, with the eggs and meat, in a saucepan. This is all of the terrapin that is used. Pour over it boiling water enough to nearly cover, add salt and a little cayenne, and cook ten minutes. It is then ready to serve with sauces, or for soups, etc.
If the terrapin has no eggs, egg balls may be made and substituted.
This is a period method for a dish that can no longer be lawfully or responsibly reproduced in most of the United States. The notes below explain what the instructions involve and why the page is best read rather than followed.
- The animal is protected"Terrapin" in nineteenth-century American cookery usually means the diamondback terrapin, Malaclemys terrapin, though other freshwater turtles were sold under the name. Commercial harvest is now prohibited or tightly restricted through most of its range, the species is listed as vulnerable internationally, and the snapping and box turtles sometimes substituted are themselves regulated in many states. A home cook is unlikely to find any legal supply.
- The live-boiling stepThe recipe opens by dropping a conscious animal head-first into boiling water, exactly as it directs for lobster. This is now prohibited or actionable under animal-welfare law in a number of jurisdictions and would not pass in any modern kitchen.
- The gall bladderThe most consequential line is the separation of the liver from the gall-bag. A ruptured gall bladder floods the meat with bile and makes the dish inedibly bitter, which is why the recipe directs that the gall be thrown away. Lifting the liver clear without nicking it is the fiddliest part of the procedure.
- Reptile meat and pathogensTurtles commonly carry Salmonella, and the shell and viscera are handled extensively here before the meat is cooked. Wild-caught turtles have also been found to accumulate mercury and organochlorines in fat and liver — and the liver is a part this recipe specifically keeps.
- "Eggs" and egg ballsThe eggs called for are the unlaid ova taken from a gravid female, prized for their yellow richness. The suggested substitute, egg balls, is a Victorian standby made from hard-boiled yolks worked with flour and a little raw yolk, rolled small and poached — the same garnish used in mock turtle soup.
- If you want the flavour of the periodTerrapin was commonly finished in cream, butter and Madeira or sherry after this preliminary cooking. Those sauces survive perfectly well on modern chicken, veal or crab; a current recipe should be used for anything you intend to eat.