Latest / Ridiculous History / Turtle Soup, Part 1: A Delicacy of Yesteryear

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Turtle Soup, Part 1: A Delicacy of Yesteryear · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Today's a day where we talk not turkey,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: but turtles. Uh. My name is Ben. There's this this
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: handsome guy who does this show with me. His name
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: is Noel Brown. And he was, uh, we were hanging
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: out off air earlier and he was a little bit, uh,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a little bit mad about his headphones. Today it was
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a little bit miffed about my cam situation. Yeah, as
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: what we call it in the biz. Hands Um. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: One thing, this is a word to the wise. Don't
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: ever have children, because they will take your stuff with
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  Speaker 1: impunity and never return it. The look is its own story.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm basically wearing the type of like little
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  Speaker 1: crappy plastic headphones that would have come with like a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Sony discman, you know in the nineties. I feel like
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  Speaker 1: I should be listening to like, you know, throwing copper
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  Speaker 1: By Live right now in my in my ears, um,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: but instead we're talking about turtles. Turtle power, soup power,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Turtle soup power. Remember the amazing pizza ad campaign of
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties where like the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
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  Speaker 1: were in a glam rock band and there was a
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  Speaker 1: whole soundtrack that they made with songs about pizza and
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: being turtles. Am I the only one that is this
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: like a Mandela Effects situation. I actually don't remember this.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: That's our super producer, Casey Pegram. I just remember they
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  Speaker 1: had a song. It was like this anthemic song. It
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  Speaker 1: was like where the tur Turtles? You can count on
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  Speaker 1: us Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was sort of on the
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  Speaker 1: like cusp of the eighties and like the Rising Tide
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  Speaker 1: of the nineties, but it's still was very like hair metal. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: look it up. There must be videos around. I would
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  Speaker 1: say it's on the cusp of K pop as far
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  Speaker 1: as the zeit guys, you know, the Turtles could have
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: been bts. Uh they're on the way. They were missing
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  Speaker 1: maybe three members. Uh, you're giving yourself hard time. No,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you're saying these are not your cans, but your mock cans.
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  Speaker 1: Uh right, Well, I mean they technically are. Can't there's
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  Speaker 1: just substandard. But I love the word mock by the way,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's it's got a nice ring to it,
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  Speaker 1: and of course it means false counterfeit some sort of
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  Speaker 1: stand in, but it doesn't necessarily imply poor quality. Wonderful point. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: today's episode is about a thing that may be weird
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  Speaker 1: to a lot of people. Here we're talking about it
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  Speaker 1: off air before we started rolling today. It's about turtle
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  Speaker 1: soup and mock turtle suit. We've talked in the past
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  Speaker 1: about the wildest things we have eaten, by which I
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  Speaker 1: mean the most scrumptious things in violation of the soft
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  Speaker 1: cultural taboos in the West. You know, you can eat
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  Speaker 1: a pig, you cannot eat a cat. Right, you can
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  Speaker 1: eat cow, you cannot eat a dog, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: Turtles are different, right, for a long long time, people
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  Speaker 1: eight a lot of turtles. If you go back through
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  Speaker 1: the menus of yesteryear in the United States, you will
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  Speaker 1: see turtle soup offered as sort of a flex. You know.
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  Speaker 1: It's like, now we're in a fancy place if we
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  Speaker 1: see turtle soup on the menu, specifically sup It's strange,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it that it no longer exists today? Like like
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  Speaker 1: if you go to the fanciest restaurant in Atlanta, which
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  Speaker 1: is universally acknowledged, check me on this guy's as a
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  Speaker 1: restaurant named Bacchanalia. If you, guys are familiar good things,
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  Speaker 1: never never had the had the pleasure. It's uh. It's
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  Speaker 1: a nice place, it's a hefty place for your wallet.
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  Speaker 1: But if you go even there, you will not see
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  Speaker 1: turtle soup on the menu. So what happened? How did
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  Speaker 1: this like, how did this become a phenomenon in the
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  Speaker 1: world of cuisine? How did it become so popular? And
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  Speaker 1: then why is it not as popular now? Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: actually just did a quick quick google wise turtle soup
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  Speaker 1: not eating anymore? And you know the number one reason
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  Speaker 1: is uh, probably the obvious one. Many species of turtles
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  Speaker 1: are endangered. Um. And it turns out that the species
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  Speaker 1: of turtles that were most popular were ones that today
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  Speaker 1: would be considered uh on the endangered list, like the
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  Speaker 1: Chelonia midas or the green sea turtle of the Caribbean,
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  Speaker 1: which could weigh up to a hundred pounds. In England
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  Speaker 1: in particular, in the mid seventeen hundreds, you would see
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  Speaker 1: this dish on tavern menus. But it would have been,
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  Speaker 1: like you said, men a bit of a flex. It
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  Speaker 1: would have been up there with some of the most
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  Speaker 1: expensive and kind of rarefied items even at you know,
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  Speaker 1: a local tavern or a pub um because they had
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  Speaker 1: to be freshly caught. Right. There was no shipping frozen
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  Speaker 1: turtles all the way from the Caribbean to London because
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  Speaker 1: at the time, of course, refrigeration was not it's a thing,
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  Speaker 1: at least to the degree that it is now. Certainly
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  Speaker 1: they could keep things on ice, but these turtles had
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  Speaker 1: to be shipped alive and and kept in these special tanks. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of like lobsters at the grocery store, only much
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  Speaker 1: larger because again these were hundred pound creatures. Um. And
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  Speaker 1: the soup itself was also made with some pretty fancy
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  Speaker 1: ingredients like Madeira wine. That was kind of a simmered
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  Speaker 1: broth where that was the base and then it was
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  Speaker 1: seasoned with cayenne peppers and anchovies. So the whole thing
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  Speaker 1: could often take like half a day to make, almost
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  Speaker 1: like the way uh really fine raman broth takes a
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  Speaker 1: really long time to make that like bone broth, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you see the the experts or for fun, it really
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  Speaker 1: does take a lot to make that broth. Um. Thankfully,
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  Speaker 1: fu and ramen are are still relatively affordable. Oh yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: you make an excellent point here in u there was
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  Speaker 1: no refrigeration. This was like ordering crab legs at a
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  Speaker 1: restaurant in terms of dollar value. Right, this is the
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  Speaker 1: most expensive thing on the menu. You take out your
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  Speaker 1: deity one to impress them. You say, order whatever you want,
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  Speaker 1: and then your date looks askance and you say, yes,
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  Speaker 1: even the turtle soup for you, my darling, anything You
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  Speaker 1: really loved me enough to let me eat this weird,
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  Speaker 1: scaly broth based dish, right right, that's that's one of
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  Speaker 1: the questions. Will explore why soup? Why? Why is it
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  Speaker 1: soup rather than turtle freakacy? You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: Fileto turtle? Right there we go. Yes, so we have
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  Speaker 1: to wonder how did these turtles come to be shipped
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  Speaker 1: to England in the first place. As written in Culinary Lore,
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  Speaker 1: one of the explanations is that turtles provided protein during
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  Speaker 1: sea voyages. Right. It's it's very easy to find, or
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  Speaker 1: it was back in the day. Very easy need to find,
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  Speaker 1: catch and eat them. And as any kid who has
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  Speaker 1: ever had a box turtle as a pet knows, turtles
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  Speaker 1: are very easy to capture and keep alive, so they're
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  Speaker 1: not like fish. You don't have to have an aquarium,
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  Speaker 1: just have a little standing water and your turtle friend
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  Speaker 1: can splash around and live their turtle life around the
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  Speaker 1: sailors who will later consume it. So they carried it
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  Speaker 1: all the way back to Europe, and then people were
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  Speaker 1: like royalty aristocrats and so on, said, what's the most
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  Speaker 1: impressive thing you found in your travels and your adventures
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  Speaker 1: to the west. And they would say, well, we found
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  Speaker 1: this weird thing. It's like a snake, but it's got
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  Speaker 1: a it's got the shell. Uh, here you go. And
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  Speaker 1: I said, what do you do with them? And they said,
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  Speaker 1: we eat them. Yeah, crack them open and and and
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  Speaker 1: eat them up, because again, remember these are very large uh.
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  Speaker 1: And obviously, you know, sea voyages were very long and arduous,
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  Speaker 1: and um was hard to keep fresh meat and fresh
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  Speaker 1: supplies on the ship. Typically it was like salted meats
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  Speaker 1: or dried you know, fruits and things like that that
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  Speaker 1: could be preserved and you know, not spoiled during the
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  Speaker 1: long uh trips to see but they could kind of
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  Speaker 1: keep this as fresh meat on hand. Um, and it
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  Speaker 1: was probably one of the tastier options. You hear stories
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  Speaker 1: of like uh, seafaring folk Uh, you know, sailors and whatnot,
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  Speaker 1: like catching like albatrosses and seabirds and things like that,
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  Speaker 1: and they're apparently just really gamy and disgusting and not
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  Speaker 1: pleasant at all. And you know, I have not had
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  Speaker 1: turtle soup personally, but for some reason, I'm picturing it
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  Speaker 1: maybe tasting a little bit like alligator meat, only because
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  Speaker 1: of the consistency of their scales and their skin and whatnot. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so I would argue that the turtle was the original
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  Speaker 1: chicken of the sea. There we go. I think I
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  Speaker 1: think you earned that one. The thing is, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the albatross is a terrible bird to kill. In the
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  Speaker 1: world of sailor and maritime superstitions. We should absolutely do
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  Speaker 1: an episode on maritime superstitions because it's good. It's gonna
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  Speaker 1: be a two parter, it has to be. Uh, turtles
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  Speaker 1: can be kept alive. They don't really have the means
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  Speaker 1: to wander off once you get them on the ship. Right.
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  Speaker 1: You may wonder, folks, how turtles became so so very popular.
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  Speaker 1: As we said, it's because they were specifically Chelonia midas
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  Speaker 1: green sea turtles. They can weigh up to a hundred pounds, right,
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  Speaker 1: the size of a dog and the size of a
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  Speaker 1: large dog. I guess I should say, Casey, what's the
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  Speaker 1: average size of a dog in your opinion? Oh jeez,
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  Speaker 1: the average size of a dog. Don't google it is
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  Speaker 1: a hundred pounds a big dog. That's a big dog.
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  Speaker 1: That's a big dog. Okay, Casey on the case. These
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  Speaker 1: turtles are the size of a Casey verified large dog
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  Speaker 1: and at their peak, as far as their soup career,
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  Speaker 1: these turtles, the specific green seed turtles were being shipped
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  Speaker 1: live from the West Indies at a rate of fifteen
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  Speaker 1: thousand per year shipped live. So at some point there
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  Speaker 1: was a ship that just went from England to the
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  Speaker 1: Indies to get turtles. No way, right, no way, they
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  Speaker 1: were doing other stuff. Surely there wasn't just a turtle trade,
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  Speaker 1: was there. Average size by the punds is a big
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  Speaker 1: gass dog always coming through Casey on the case A
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  Speaker 1: second time turtle trade. I mean yeah, I would say
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  Speaker 1: fifteen thousand live turtles being shipped from the West Indies
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  Speaker 1: a year would constitute its own trade. That's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of live turtles. But you know a lot of things
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  Speaker 1: were being shipped back and forth on those routes, so
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  Speaker 1: it was just kind of part of the party, I think. Um,
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  Speaker 1: but it's because the stuff really really was catching on,
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  Speaker 1: because you know, when the sailors brought the turtles back
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  Speaker 1: and the royals started, they started getting a taste for it,
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  Speaker 1: started getting a taste uh, and they actually felt or
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  Speaker 1: culinarily speaking, um, this is the answer to my question. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: They believed that turtles contain seven distinct different types of
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  Speaker 1: meat all in one package. Um, each have having their
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  Speaker 1: own unique yet also um you know uh analogous flavor uh,
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  Speaker 1: something akin to pork and chicken and beef and shrimp
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  Speaker 1: and veal and fish and goats. Um, depending on the
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  Speaker 1: type of turtle or the part of the turtle. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not a cent sure. This is blowing my mind. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And then that that's coming from people who were really
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  Speaker 1: into the stuff, who got that taste and I was
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  Speaker 1: talking about. Then there are some folks did not buy in.
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  Speaker 1: They describe the flavor as being dirty, mushy, chewy. To
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  Speaker 1: be fair, these are more textures than flavors, uh and muddy. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's the thing. You know. You hear this sometimes with
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  Speaker 1: people who eat shark or eat catfish. Right, they'll say, oh, uh,
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  Speaker 1: this taste of the things this has eaten. One note
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  Speaker 1: here there are a lot of people who will tell
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  Speaker 1: you not to eat a large catfish, the reasoning being
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that one can only eat so much garbage before one
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  Speaker 1: becomes a thing. The taste of garbage. Oh yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: let's all be real. I mean, if we've ever seen
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  Speaker 1: turtles in the wild, chances are they're nibbling on something
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  Speaker 1: slimy and gross. I had two pet turtles. They were wonderful.
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  Speaker 1: I let both of them go free in a Harry
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  Speaker 1: and the Henderson's moment. I also want to point out
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  Speaker 1: that while the turtle trade was at its height, at
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  Speaker 1: its peak, uh, the Atlantic slave trade was occurring. So
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  Speaker 1: this this happens within that context, right, and the qualities,
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  Speaker 1: as they were called at the time, what would become
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  Speaker 1: the United States. Of course, they looked over and they said,
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  Speaker 1: look at this, just down the maritime street from us.
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  Speaker 1: The king and all the King's men are taking these
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  Speaker 1: amazing turtles. They taste of seven different distinct types of meat,
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  Speaker 1: and we're not allowed to have those. That's too fancy
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  Speaker 1: for us, apparently. And they also got into it the
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  Speaker 1: the American colonists of the time, we should also mention,
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  Speaker 1: of course, this was not a new thing to the
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  Speaker 1: people who actually lived in the places that would become
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  Speaker 1: called the Caribbean and the United States. People totally ate turtles.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't think it was a necessarily super fancy thing.
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  Speaker 1: You know, they didn't idealize or fetishize it the same
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  Speaker 1: way that perhaps the Europeans did. Uh. If Casey nol
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  Speaker 1: you and I went to the early US colonies, we
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  Speaker 1: would be eating turtles. We would not be eating the
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  Speaker 1: big fancy Caribbean turtles. Probably we would be eating snapping turtles,
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  Speaker 1: which are super gross looking creatures. I don't know if
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  Speaker 1: that if have you guys seen one of these in person? Yeah,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: back to the Ninja Turtles movie, Uh, Ninja Turtles too,
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  Speaker 1: Secret of the Ooze. You may recall the large mutated
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  Speaker 1: snapping turtle that was I think paired with some sort
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  Speaker 1: of werewolf esque creature. That was the They were the
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  Speaker 1: batties in that movie. Tell you Bebop and rock Steady
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  Speaker 1: No no, no, no, the names. Yeah, but there was
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  Speaker 1: a snapping turtle and then like a wolf kind of
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  Speaker 1: creature and they were they were shredders, minions and and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and Ninja turtles too. Secret of the ooze. But yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that started off as a little baby snap and turtle
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  Speaker 1: because they have sort of more of a triangular pointy
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  Speaker 1: beak situation and they really will take off a finger
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  Speaker 1: if you're not careful. But that didn't stop intrepid early
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  Speaker 1: American settlers in Plymouth Colony. Uh, you would even see
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  Speaker 1: them eating the turtles eggs. And nothing pisces off a
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  Speaker 1: mama snapping turtle more than you're trying to steal her eggs.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, there's conject sure that turtle soup of some
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  Speaker 1: kind might have or would likely have been on the
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  Speaker 1: menu at the very first Thanksgiving um. But they you know,
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been as fancy as as the version that
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  Speaker 1: we were talking about from England. It would have been
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  Speaker 1: a more simplified kind of version because of what they
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  Speaker 1: had at their disposal. By the Revolutionary War times, turtle
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  Speaker 1: soup was a staple, an absolute favorite. You'd see it
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in cookbooks across the country. And that's how you know
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: something's really broken through is when you start seeing recipes
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  Speaker 1: for it and like, you know, the Hinz Family cookbook
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: or whatever, Toca and that's it. That's it. Toca was
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the wolf guy Razzolator was the was the snapper. Alligator
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: snapping turtle was crazy. I am a bit sad. Admittedly,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: alligator snapping turtles are vulnerable species. You're absolutely right they
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  Speaker 1: may have been eating turtle soup in some form of Thanksgiving.
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  Speaker 1: It did not have tomatoes, it did not have shary,
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  Speaker 1: it was not fancy. All the early colonists agreed that
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  Speaker 1: the flavor, however, was scrump dittally umptuous. There's nothing like
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a good turtle soup, and the colonists began to identify
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: this with the concept of democracy. How weird is that?
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  Speaker 1: You know? It's right, it's not. It's not difficult to
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  Speaker 1: hunt a turtle, unfortunately, apologies to any turtles in the audience.
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  Speaker 1: Your evasion skills are your dump stat You could find
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  Speaker 1: turtles hanging out in your neck of the woods, whether
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  Speaker 1: you were wealthy or whether you were poor, and you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: will find in the historical record many many famous, like
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: influential early US figures who were super into turtle soup.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: They loved it, and need to backtrack ever so slightly. Ben,
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  Speaker 1: I love this idea of catching a turtle representing democracy,
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  Speaker 1: and I see why now, because it's the great equalizer.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: You know, to catch a fox, he gotta have fancy hounds.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: You know, to do a rabbit hunt or something, you
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: have to have like specialty gear and like a whole
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: crew and all of that and horses and all that
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: whatever that stuff. Turtle you can just catch one in
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: your backyard. Little kids can catch turtles. I have there
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  Speaker 1: for everybody, including John Adams, who, upon voting for independence
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  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia on July four a, seventeen seventies six, celebrated
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  Speaker 1: with a steaming, piping hot bowl of turtle soup and
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  Speaker 1: George Washington. When the war, the Revolutionary War was over,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: he met with his officers at France's tavern in Manhattan,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: which was famously personified with a freestyle rap battle in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the musical Hamilton's Uh for a you know this little
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: soare uh presumably with some with some turtle soup, and
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  Speaker 1: also before Aaron Burr also featured in Hamilton's Murdered the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Titular Hamilton's. Both were members of something called the Hoboken
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  Speaker 1: Turtle Club, where members would kick it and eat turtle
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  Speaker 1: soup with boiled eggs and brandy. Okay, I can't go
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: with them all the way I'm not anti boiled egg.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I'm skeptical of the contribution of boiled egg can make
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  Speaker 1: to a good bowl of turtle soup. It is a
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  Speaker 1: real thing. The Hoboken Turtle Club is the brainchild of
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a former captain serving under George Washington, a guy named
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: John Stevens. He got super rich through real estate and
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: various inventions, most notably a screw driven steamboat. Uh. He
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: was super into turtles because he wanted to eliminate their population.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I also love the idea, like that's the thing people have,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: these weirdly specific clubs and extra curricular activities. Like if
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: you guys started a weirdly specific club about food, Noel,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: would you have one immediately? Do you have one that
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: you can think of immediately? Like this is Noel Brown's
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: weirdly specific food club. You know. Um, when I was
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a kid, when I was once a young German boy
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: growing up in in Germany, UM, I was a huge
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: fan of scargo, which is kind of a weird one
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: for a little kid, but you know, my parents were
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: into it. I liked it. My mom always you know,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: never let the facts and the way of a good
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: story and says, know you and you were a small
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: German boy, you ate you'll wait and escar go up
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and down the German countryside, because that's how she talks,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: because she's an heiress of sorts. But maybe I would have.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: And then the Noel Brown Scargo Society because it's not
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: something people talk about much anymore. And uh, I think
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: it's a bad rap. I like the texture, it's chewy,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: it's got a nice ummmy to it, and it's just
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a great vehicle for garlic and garlic butter. It's sunctious.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: What about you, Casey? Okay. One one real life eccentricity
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of mine is that when I was a kid, I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: enjoyed a delicacy known as a mustard sandwich, which was
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a sandwich with mustard and nothing else. And this was
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: met with a great deal of consternation by a kindergarten
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: teacher of mine Casey's Mustard Sandwich Club. I don't know
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: if I'll just kind of lurk. I don't know if
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I want to be an inducted, but I'm interested to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: see what goes on behind those closed doors. I have to.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I have to fess up, like I have not myself
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: been a member in a number of years. So um,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: no hard feelings if you're if you're not looking to join, No, Well,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: taste evolve over time. You know, you may have been
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: ahead of the curve because I've read several studies showing
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that people in younger years prefer ketchup, and as the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: age into adulthood, prefer mustard if they had to choose.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Nothing like this is happening with turtles. People are all
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: on board. In the US. They're like, man, you know
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: what's awesome turtle soup. William Howard Taft is like he's
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: asked about what his favorite meal is and he says
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: turtle soup is one of his top tens. And he
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: also says he chose the chef of the White House
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: based primarily on the guy's ability to cook turtle in
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: any form. And we have to mention again, Remember I
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I I said that this was occurring during the slave trade,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: right during the Middle Passage, when there were vast, systemic,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: unforgivable atrocities against human beings. Right, you may not be
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: surprised to find fellow ridiculous as storians that wealthy Southerners
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: loved turtle soup. Of course, turtles were were, and hopefully
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: will still be abundant in the south. The plantation owning
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: class picture the mint julup and the sear sucker suit.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Every so often they said, ma, this parishian heat, we
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: should throw a turtle frolic. That's what they call them.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: They had these parties they called the turtle frolics. That
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: sounds fun, it does if you're not there at the time,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: because again, this is this is terrible, terrible stuff is
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: man's in humanity demand. But the turtle frolic itself is wild.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: They would have these turtle shells. These were the Caribbean turtles,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: by the way, the ones that are over a hundred pounds. Uh.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: They would have these three ft long shells that were
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: turned upside down as bulls for the turtle soup. You know,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: have you ever seen the inside of a turtle shell.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: It's it's got it's kind of like where the spine
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is fused to the shell and there's it's it's a
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: little macabre if you think about it now. I mean,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I guess you know, eating an animal directly out of
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: its shell is always going to be a little on
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the grizzly side if you think about it enough. But yeah,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: lit Graham, but moving on from the turtle frolic. In
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: America in the eighteen sixties, turtle soup for turtle meat
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: was considered like a very special occasion related delicacy. Abraham
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Lincoln Um at least was personally responsible for pushing for
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: this narrative after his second inauguration in eighteen sixty five.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: The inaugural meal began with a course of turtle uh
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: likely oiled in a stew with cream and butter and eggs,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: so more like a uh like if you've ever had
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: oyster stew, which I quite like. My mom makes it
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: for Christmas every year. It's sort of a tradition, but
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: it is sort of a creamy buttery. You could put
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a little sherry in there, or like maybe she crab soup.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: That's kind of what this reminds me of. I could
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: go for that, And I'm imagining the turtle meat would
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: be minced, so you wouldn't be getting like big, old, weird,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: recognizable chunks of turtle. One would hope. I'm intrigued, you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: aside from the endangered element of this, I would certainly
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: be game to give this type of version of this
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: dish a taste. But only folks like you know, the president. Yeah,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I could have could afford this as a special occasion
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: for their inaugural. That's because they were becoming much more rare.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if it was because there was just
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: a run on these turtles, you know. And also remember,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: as I want to point out to remember, how we
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: talked about how Charles Darwin supposedly eight every animal that
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: he studied. Yes, Jack O'Brien from dally Zeitgeist introduced us
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to that troubling in corroborative fact. I looked into it.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Jack was right because he was a part of a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: society too that just like eight weird animals. If I'm
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: not mistaken, it's called Boland society. That's the one. But
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: here's the thing, Uh, despite the scarcity of of these
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: uh succulent reptiles, folks still wanted their turtle soup, or
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: at very least something resembling it. So that's when I
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: don't know who figured it out, who coined this, but
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: that's when something called mock turtle soup started to come
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: into fashion as an alternative. Yes, yes, very similitude the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: appearance of being true or real. Um, before we get
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: into this. I want everyone listening to day to think
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a little bit about stuff like crab rangoon. How much
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: crab do you think is in that fans of American
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Chinese food and a negligible amount. I mean, god, it's
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: like zero a fleck, you know. Zero. The thing is like,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: we have imitation crab, we have we have a lot
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of things that I would say are aspirational in terms
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of flavor. You're totally right, and yet people like some
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: of them for their own reasons, like imitation crab has
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: it has a thing about it like you can't really
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: get it anywhere else, doesn't really taste like crab. It
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: kind of looks like crab. It's just I don't even
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: know what we've we've talked about it. I think it
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: contains other fish, like halibit that's like pressed and has
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: food coloring to give it the appearance of the little
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: red parts of the crab. But it's also very low calorie, uh,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and so a lot of people like eating it, like
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: in a diet situation. And it's also what you always
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: get on the inside of like a cheap kind of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: California roll right right there. And for example, there are
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: sometimes I prefer to cook with imitation crab, depending on
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the stack I'm making. If anything, the name imitation crab
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: is bad marketing. They just should have sold it as
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: its own thing. What do you call it, though, Ben,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: let's have a quick brainstorm. Sessh, it would be a
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: good alternative name. Imitation crab, fish, press pressed fish, fish, butter,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: fish butter. I'm into that. Fish butter is weird. It's
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: not quite there. It's a little weird. But but let's
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: get there. I think we're nailing that. Umami. They also
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: call it crab stick sometimes crab stick. Yeah, but it's
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: imitation crab stick. Yeah. So anyway, turtles, right, uh So,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: not everybody as the president in the United States, a
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: problem that continues to the modern day. There are more
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: than three hundred and twenty million people in the US
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: who are not currently the president. We had a we
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: had a recent new addition to our ranks. Uh So,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: if you are, like most people, not the president of
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the United States, you cannot afford to eat turtle. It's
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: expensive because in some parts of the country. Again to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: our earlier point, there is no refrigeration. In some parts
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: of the country, you can't get turtles. So you might
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: eat the next best thing, mock turtle soup. And and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: let's let's make sure everybody feels their self worth their value.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Don't think these other people are fancier than you are.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: At Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration, they did not serve turtle soup.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: They served mock turtle soup because they couldn't get those
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: turtles from the Caribbean that were considered, you know, the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: def acto ingredient for turtle soup. But everybody at the inauguration,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they're still super happy. They thought mock turtle soup was
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: not a joke but kind of a comparable delicacy. Right.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: It's it's like the Ikea furniture of turtle soup. Okay,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: so what is it? Uh? This is adorable question. We
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: pretty much know what it is. Uh. And it's pretty gross,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: isn't it. It's not it's not like super wholesome, but
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: it is. It's definitely a thing. Why don't kick it
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: for us? It's just like where you put all your
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: leftover meat parts, um, but it also contains other bits
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: to give it like a little more flavor. It's really
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: kind of all over the place. The real gross one,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the common ingredients or like the secret ingredient is a
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: calf's head. I'm assuming just boiled in there, like so
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the skin kind of sloughs off and to and then
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: they take the skull out. I wouldn't imagine you get
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: your mock turtle soup with a fully formed cow calf
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: skull in there. What a huge turtle? Is this? Like kingcake?
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I got the baby? Oh yeah, but they would add
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: things like beef, ham, veggies, oysters, uh, skin, tongue, brain,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: and and and because they were trying to mimic. And
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: we haven't really uh fully explained this, but texture is
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: a really important part of the mock turtle experience because
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: turtle meat, as it turns out, is quite gelatinous um.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And in order to achieve that, you'd have boiled various
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: boiled meats. And again I can imagine that all of
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the collagen and things that would be that would would
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: come off when you boiled the calf's head would make
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: for quite a gelatinous texture. Indeed. Yeah, and part of
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the creation of mock turtle soup depends on the rendering
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: of this fat right in in the calf's head. Uh. Look,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: other people are making their own turtle soup at home
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: or mock turtle soup. And you can see recipes about
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: this uh anywhere from two on maybe a little bit earlier.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Current companies and the modern day here in also had
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: canned turtle soup. Once upon a time, Hinz had turtle soup,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Campbell's had turtle soup and mocked turtle soup made of
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that calf's head. And they were advertising this toward a
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: demographic that could not afford that beautiful, unctious, weird flex
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: turtle soup. Here's why they were doing this. Most people
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: couldn't deal with the process saying of the turtle that
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: would be made for proper turtle soup. They would get
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a turtle that was fifty sixty pounds maybe more. They
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: had to kill it. They had to cut off the head.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: They had to hang it by its hind legs, its
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: hind fins excuse me overnight to drain. They had to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: cut the fins off. They had to separate the upper
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and lower shell from the flesh it was. It was involved.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Then they had to clean it. They had to get
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: rid of the innards. They had to preserve what they
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: called the green fat. And this is what renders when
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you're cooking is what gives it that unctious flavor. This
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: is why it's the calf's whole head. And then after
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: after you prepared this, the soup, depending on the recipe
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: you take, is super complicated, super complicated. It takes hours
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: and hours and hours. I'm not walking away from that.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Putton super is appropriate here and it's hilarious. These turtles
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: themselves are very expensive, and they become more and more
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: expensive because, just like the fur trade around this time,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: it's not sustainable. They're taking too much from the land
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: and green turtles as a result are almost hunted to extinction,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: which makes the price higher and higher and higher. We
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: got a feedback loop at this point. Okay, okay, there's
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: so much more turtle discussions to be had, but I
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: think we're gonna put a pin in this one until
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: next time. UM, thank you so much, Ben for all
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: of the amazing turtle talk. Is going to be more
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: to come, Noel, thank you, and thanks to super producer
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegrham. Thanks to our research associate, our number one
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: teenage ninja turtle, Gabe. Hey Nold, what what ninja turtle
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: do you think Gabe would be? If we had to guess, Oh,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: he's the smart one. What was that Leonardo? No Donna? Yeah,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I always Leonardo was the leader. I guess Donna Tello
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: was the science. He one right, he had the lab
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I think gave would be that one gave. You know
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: what Gave is like a vultron asked kind of figure.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: He's like all of the ninja turtles rolled into the one.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: He's the wit of Michael Angelo, the braun and brave
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: of of of Raphael. You know, the leadership qualities of
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Leonardo and the intellect of Donna Tello all rolled up
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: into one admittedly non turtle creature. And thanks as always
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to our own. Uh. I don't know whether he's a
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Taca or a razor, but Jonathan strictly a k the quizier.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: He's more of a super shredder kind of figure there.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: It is the secret of the ooze. Uh, thanks as
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: well to Christopher Hasiotis, uh Eves, Jeff co and uh Noel.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you to you man. This has been a crazy ride.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: We ended up with another two parter um. We did, indeed,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And if you want to tell us how you feel
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: about this one, I drop us a note. On social
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: media you can find us on Facebook, where we have
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a group called the List Historians. Great conversations and means
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: sharing and all the good stuff there to be had
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: at your fingertips. You can also find us as a
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: show or as individuals on social media's as well. I
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: am on Instagram pretty much exclusively where I am at
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: how Now, Noel Brown? How about you? Man? You can
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: send me turtle recipes directly at Ben Bullying hs W
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: on Twitter or at Ben Bullying on Instagram. We'll see
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.