Man-Eating Monsters by Dina Khapaeva

Author:Dina Khapaeva [Khapaeva, Dina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Published: 2019-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Pre-terrapin: West Indian Turtles

The terrapin began as an economical substitute for the original New World gourmet item, the green Caribbean sea turtle which could weigh as much as 900 pounds (Sherman, 2004, pp. 104–119). Cookbooks recommended turtles no larger than 60 pounds, but many larger specimens were loaded onto ships and kept alive for the long voyage to New York, London, or other cities with wealthy diners. Connoisseurs of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries sometimes ordered “bespoke” turtles in advance. In his Familiar Letters on Various Topics, Charles Halifax around 1765 describes the arrival at the London docks of a healthy 250 lb turtle from the West Indies. An early guide to dining out in London, The Epicure’s Almanach in 1815 describes establishments that specialized in preparing large, unwieldy food such as game and turtles. One such eating house, McNiven’s, employed “No fewer than half-a-dozen able bodied men-cooks, and perhaps as many neat handed maid-cooks” who handled the special orders. “In their respective seasons, the forest buck, and the turtle come hither ‘like sacrifices in their trim’, and are offered hot and smoking to the gods of jollity.”

The great turtles were served according to ceremonial customs, in various pieces. A typical presentation for turtle fricassee was diagrammed (Sherman, 2004, p. 107):

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