World Turtle Day is May 23, established by American Tortoise Rescue “to help people celebrate and protect turtles and tortoises and their disappearing habitats around the world.” One important reason for this was the overhunting of turtles in the 19th and early 20th centuries for turtle soup, one of the culinary status symbols of the age.
Turtle, or terrapin, soup was one of two required delicacies on the Victorian menu to establish a Perfectly Proper formal dinner as an Occasion*. It began appearing on American dinner tables almost as soon as the colonists landed. It doesn’t sound very easy to manage — Victorian cooks said a 120-pound turtle was ideal — but then by the 1920s Campbell’s had created a canned version. As it went from popularity to craze to costly luxury, cooks had to come up with an economical substitute for everyone Trying to Keep Up. That’s how mock turtle soup came to be, using a calf’s head or “brains or other organ meats”** for turtle. It eventually became popular in its own right.
With the robust exuberance of the period, silversmiths created special silver just for this dish. You’ll find some surprising images of terrapin forks here and here at the Silver Pieces — The Strange and Peculiar blog. As that blogger observes, the shape is very like the 20th-century plastic spork, possibly quite useful for a meaty soup or stew. Etiquetteer can’t help thinking that drips would be a problem, but then the Victorians even ate ice cream with forks. Perhaps the vogue for forks collapsed along with that for turtle soup . . .
Because the vogue for turtle soup did sputter to an end at the midcentury. A 1947 article in Life magazine helped to explain why turtle soup became a regional instead of required delicacy. The ingredients, including sea turtles and bottles of well-aged sherry, "are not all easy to obtain." (It’s interesting to note that sherry is not only an ingredient in turtle soup, but the wine to serve with the soup course.) Plus, sea turtles were so darned ornery about being captured; Etiquetteer can’t imagine why . . . One region where turtle soup still reigns supreme is New Orleans, and Etiquetteer was able to enjoy a plate of turtle soup at Brennan’s in 2016. A savory and rich brown soup, it was easy to understand why it was so popular in Days of Yore.
Aside from rarity, the sort of formal dinner at which turtle soup was indispensable was also falling out of vogue. The informality of the postwar years featured cocktail parties, buffets, and picnics more than “stuffy” dinner parties. That said, Etiquetteer longs for a return to a Perfectly Proper dinner party — but not with anything on the menu that’s approaching extinction, thank you very much.
*The other was canvasback duck or Long Island duckling. You simply had to have one or the other.
**A dear lady Etiquetteer has been privileged to know lo these many years once asked “You know what causes gout, don’t you? Organ meats!”