No. 1083

Terrapin a la Baltimore

Terrapene a la Baltimore

Have one quart of prepared terrapin as explained in No. 1082; drain it off. Cook four ounces of butter in a saucepan till it becomes hazelnut butter (No. 567), but watch carefully that it does not blacken; add to it the terrapin with some salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of cayenne, fry for few moments, then moisten with the broth. Dilute one tablespoonful of fecula, arrowroot or cornstarch in a little cold water, pour it in with the terrapin, toss well to thicken nicely, and just when ready to serve add half a gill of good sherry wine. After the terrapin has been prepared it is served in chafing dishes kept warm by water boiling continuously by means of an alcohol lamp, or else in small silver plated saucepans (Fig. 282) or in China terrapins (Fig. 283), the backs of which are loose and are used as covers; whichever way may be chosen, be most particular that the terrapin is always served very hot.

← No. 1082 To Prepare and Cook Terrapin Terrapin No. 1084 Terrapin a la Crisfied →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a period recipe for a creature that can no longer legally or ethically be bought and cooked in most of the places it once came from. The notes below are for reading the text, not for executing it.

The animal is the problemThe terrapin of Ranhofer's kitchens was the diamondback terrapin, Malaclemys terrapin, taken from Atlantic and Gulf salt marshes. Commercial harvest is now prohibited or tightly restricted across its range, and the species was listed on CITES Appendix II in 2013. There is no legal supply chain for a quart of prepared terrapin meat.
No. 1082 compounds itThe dish depends on a separate preparation (No. 1082, "To Prepare and Cook Terrapin"), not reproduced here. Beyond the legal question, wild-caught freshwater and brackish turtles are a recognised source of Salmonella.
Held hot indefinitelyHeld hot through service -- The serving instruction is a chafing dish over water kept boiling by an alcohol lamp, or a covered silver or china vessel; Ranhofer is emphatic that the terrapin be served very hot. A long dinner service with no way of checking the temperature is still a hold, not a cook.
If you want the dishUse a current recipe for a stew of chicken, veal or farmed alligator in the same butter-and-sherry style. Do not attempt a substitution worked out from this text.
Reading the ingredients"Fecula" is simply starch — Ranhofer offers arrowroot or cornstarch as equivalents. Half a gill is a quarter cup; a gill is half a cup. "Hazelnut butter" (No. 567) is butter cooked to a nut-brown beurre noisette, which is why he warns against letting it blacken.

A Little History

Terrapin stew was the great luxury dish of the American Atlantic seaboard in the nineteenth century, and Baltimore was its acknowledged capital — Chesapeake marshes supplied the trade, and "Baltimore style" came to mean the plain butter-and-sherry treatment rather than the cream-and-egg-yolk version associated with Philadelphia. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York and author of The Epicurean (1894), gives it a full section of the book with several variants and even illustrations of the porcelain turtle-shaped tureens sold for the purpose, which tells you how firmly it belonged to formal dining. That popularity is the reason the recipe is now unusable: sustained commercial harvest through the 1800s and early 1900s collapsed the diamondback terrapin population, and the dish faded from menus as the supply and then the law ran out. It survives mainly as the namesake of the University of Maryland's mascot.