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Clear Green Turtle, Tomate
Open a pint can of green turtle, thoroughly heat it in a bain-marie, then cut meat in half-inch-square pieces, place both meat and broth in a saucepan with one and a half pints strained consomme, add half gill sherry, a tablespoon brandy and slowly boil twenty minutes. Pour in a pint hot tomato sauce, boil five minutes. Pour into a soup tureen and serve.
This soup is built on one ingredient that is no longer legally or ethically obtainable, and no adjustment of method changes that.
- The green turtleChelonia mydas, the green sea turtle, is assessed as endangered by the IUCN and is protected under CITES Appendix I and, in the United States, the Endangered Species Act (its populations listed as threatened or endangered depending on the segment). Possession, import and sale of the meat are prohibited. The canned green turtle this recipe assumes is not available in commerce now.
- No substitution is impliedSnapping turtle and other freshwater turtles are farmed or taken under licence in some places, but the regulations vary by state and country and the handling requirements are not those described here. If you want a turtle soup, work from a current, properly sourced recipe rather than adapting this one.
- Mock turtle is a different dishThe Victorian imitation used a calf's head and its gelatinous skin to mimic the texture of turtle callipash. It is a genuine dish in its own right with its own method, not a drop-in swap for the can of meat called for here.
- Reading the quantitiesA gill is a quarter-pint, so half a gill of sherry is two fluid ounces, about four tablespoons. With the pint can of turtle, the pint and a half of consomme and the pint of tomato sauce, the pan starts at roughly three and a half pints before any reduction.
- Why the long boilThe twenty minutes of slow boiling comes after the sherry and brandy go in, and the tomato sauce goes in only for the last five minutes. The meat needs no tenderising, having been cooked in the can.
- The bain-marieA water bath: the can or its contents set in a pan of hot water, warming the meat and broth through without direct heat on the pan.
Green turtle soup was one of the great luxury foods of the nineteenth century, carried alive in ships' holds from the Caribbean to the kitchens of London, New York and Paris, and by the time this book was written canned turtle was widely sold -- which is what the recipe assumes. Its prestige is why turtle soup appears on so many state and civic banquet menus of the era, and why the cheaper imitation, mock turtle made from a calf's head, became a household dish in its own right. Heavy commercial harvesting through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is generally credited with driving green turtle populations to the point where international protection became necessary.