To Cook Turtles

Drop four turtles into boiling water and boil for an hour, then skin them and boil again.

From: Housekeeping in Old Virginia
Published: 1879
Yikes Scale: Big yikes

Exactly as printed, 1879

Drop four turtles into boiling water, and boil one hour; then take them out and remove the skin from the legs and feet, and replace them in fresh boiling water, where they should continue to boil one and one-half hour and then be taken out to cool. When cold, clean them thoroughly, removing the round liver which contains the gall. Cut them into small bits and place them in a stewpan, adding pepper, salt, the eggs that are found within, one quart water, one half pound butter, and two tablespoonfuls flour mixed with a little cold water. Stir the flour and water well into the other ingredients, and stew about twenty minutes. As you remove them from the fire, pour in one-half pint Madeira wine.--Mrs. A. D.

Housekeeping in Old Virginia, 1879. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

In tidewater Virginia at this date, “turtles” most likely means diamondback terrapin, whose commercial harvest is now prohibited. Where snapping turtles or sliders were substituted, they concentrate mercury and PCBs in fat and liver — several states still issue consumption advisories.

The animals go into boiling water alive. There is no way to write around that; it is the first instruction.

Notes from the 21st century

Two boils, not one. The first hour loosens the skin, the second cooks the meat. It is the same logic as scalding a pig, applied to a reptile.
Madeira was the standard finish. Every grand turtle preparation of the period ends with fortified wine. It is the flavour people actually remembered.
Turtle soup built and emptied a fishery. Green turtle and terrapin were both fished to collapse for the table between roughly 1800 and 1930.

Also in this book

Brandy Peaches — Five minutes in boiling lye to strip the fuzz, and blanched kernels added to the jar.
Calf's Head Pudding — Boil the head until the bones drop out, pick the meat fine, then lay the brains over the top and bake.
Pickled Cucumbers (Gallon vinegar) — Line the brass kettle with grape leaves and boil, to green the fruit.

Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.

Read the original page →

More that is frankly gross

See all

Snail-and-Frog Broth

Francatelli's invalid broth: two or three garden snails, “the hind-quarters only of two dozen stream-frogs previously skinned,” bruised together and simmered with turnip and saffron.

🤢 Frankly Gross Iffy

Meals Medicinal · 1905

Canker in the Mouth (frog butter)

Boil a pound of butter, add “four common green frogs,” cook until dry, stir in alum. For canker of the mouth, throat or stomach. Said to be infallible.

🤢 Frankly Gross Big yikes

The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851

Snails à la Bordelaise (Lazzarini)

“Put ten pounds of snails in a covered barrel and keep for ten days.” Then salt, vinegar, and stirring “until a foam rises.” All of it alive.

🤢 Frankly Gross Iffy

Bohemian San Francisco · 1914