I am having a love/hate thing with this tbh. The Wikipedia definition of mock turtle soup is also really gross, but apparently it’s still popular in Cincinnati. Which is wild.
I wouldn’t eat it on a dare, even before reading this original recipe. This recipe is so intense; starting at “To Dress Turtle” and ending at the eyes comment (which really does come out of nowhere, like the ending to an Ambrose Bierce horror short), it’s five and a half pages of single-spaced instructions that would do well in Texas Chain Saw Massacre. And she tells you to do it all inside your house. I don’t know if you have ever visited Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, or Yorktown, but the average home was small, the carnage would have taken over the entire family’s lives. It wasn’t like “Mummy will be in the summer kitchen with the doors firmly closed, go about your chores”. Turtle and calf everywhere! She even tells you to use a saw at one point. Was she unwell, or, like I wrote, was this a joke inserted to see if people would do it?
This is all why I didn’t quote it; I am an occasional meat eater, and a voracious horror reader (and now writer), and I was disturbed. I am now side-eyeing Cincinnati.
That is bonkers. And so much effort for food?! The recipe for it in Cincinnati didn’t have actual turtle, so there’s that going for them😂 I can’t even wrap my head around butchering a turtle, let alone just, casually around the fam. Wild.
I am having a love/hate thing with this tbh. The Wikipedia definition of mock turtle soup is also really gross, but apparently it’s still popular in Cincinnati. Which is wild.
I wouldn’t eat it on a dare, even before reading this original recipe. This recipe is so intense; starting at “To Dress Turtle” and ending at the eyes comment (which really does come out of nowhere, like the ending to an Ambrose Bierce horror short), it’s five and a half pages of single-spaced instructions that would do well in Texas Chain Saw Massacre. And she tells you to do it all inside your house. I don’t know if you have ever visited Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, or Yorktown, but the average home was small, the carnage would have taken over the entire family’s lives. It wasn’t like “Mummy will be in the summer kitchen with the doors firmly closed, go about your chores”. Turtle and calf everywhere! She even tells you to use a saw at one point. Was she unwell, or, like I wrote, was this a joke inserted to see if people would do it?
This is all why I didn’t quote it; I am an occasional meat eater, and a voracious horror reader (and now writer), and I was disturbed. I am now side-eyeing Cincinnati.
That is bonkers. And so much effort for food?! The recipe for it in Cincinnati didn’t have actual turtle, so there’s that going for them😂 I can’t even wrap my head around butchering a turtle, let alone just, casually around the fam. Wild.