How to dress a turtle?

[Paul CLW]

Fellow Fishermen,

I need your help. My wife's uncle asked me today to find instructions on dressing out a turtle. I enabled a search but got 282,000+ places to look.

Would anyone of you know a web address that may have these instructions?

Thank you for your help.

Paul CLW

[CANEYE]

From the Wild Food Cookbook:

Dressing Out a Turtle. Scrub the decapitated turtle with laundry soap and a stff brush
until it is clean. Get a container of water, big enough to hold the turtle boiling. When
you have scrubbed off the leeches and green growths, boil the whole turtle for 30-40
minutes. I like to work outdoors, so I take the turtle pot and dump it outside on the
grass and leave it until the turtle is cool enough to handle. I turn it upside down and cut
out the under shell. Again I let it cool. There are seven different flavors of turtle meat.
Some of the choicest lie along the backbone and it is almost hopeless to get this out if
the turtle has not been boiled first. Now is the time to work with two dishpans. I toss
the good meat into one and the discards into the other. When in doubt I taste. Muscle
meat tends to be good, fat is often of low quality. Seek the liver carefully. It is often
excellent, but the gall bladder must be cut away and discarded or its acrid taste will
permeate, and your friends will wish you had never come upon a turtle.

Fried Turtle: Fry like chicken or pheasant.

Turtle Soup: Cook slowly, simmering over low heat with onions and a little salt. Some
include the small intestines in turtle soup. Meat stock or bouillon may be added. Taste
the soup when the meat is tender. Now is the time to decide whether to make plain
turtle soup seasoned with sherry, or whether to add tomatoes, carrots, celery, etc.

P.S. Be careful with the head. It can still cause a nasty bite long after it has been
severed. I question the wisdom of tasting turtle meat before it is thoroughly cooked.

-- Ken Scharabok (Scharabo@aol.com), June 20, 2000.



make a slit in the skin,, hook up an air hose, pops right off, looses the skin from the
meat

-- STAN (sopal@net-port.com), June 20, 2000.



AHHH!Fried turtle with a big bucket of coleslaw and kneecaps! Fried turtle festival in
Menschalsville-a combination of one of my favorite foods and fondest memories of
childhood. I guess thats why my favorite receipe thes days is: Take 1 large turtle, wait
till pond warms up, throw turtle in.

Turtles, snappers in particular, have had such a hard time around here that there are
very few around. Ive become something of a turtle refuge operator. People bring me
baby turtles and injured adults off of roads and such and I nurse them back to health or
raise up the little ones in tanks until they are a relatively "safe" size and re-release them
in (what I believe to be) safe breeding flats.

If I try hard enough, then maybe some of my children will be able to enjoy fried turtle,
too.

-- William in WI (thetoebes@webtv.net), June 20, 2000.



Here is another turtle soup recipe from Bootstraps and Buicuits: 300 wonderful wild
food recipes from the hills of West Virginia by Anna Lee Robe-Terry.

Deboned meat from one small turtle. One each cup of chopped potatoes, onion and
celery. One quart of turtle stock made from the bones. Cook all together until
vegetables are tender. Add enough milk or cream to your taste. Adjust salt and
pepper. Serve. (I suspect for larger turtles you can probably add more veges.

This book is very interesting to read. It is available from ALT PRESS, Rt 6, Box
3091, Fairmont, WV 26554 for $17.98 plus $1.50 shipping (WV residents add
$1.08).

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), June 23, 2000.






The "new Getty" cost $1 billion to construct.
With $1 billion, one could print a book of
full-color reproductions of all the major works
in the Getty collection and mail a copy to
every home in the United States. What then
is the point of having a physical museum? It
can't be to show people the art because that
would be better accomplished by sending

[Fishnfuul]

OK, I can't resist! Formal or Casual?

[smartypants]

In a turtleneck sweater? Friends don't let friends eat turtle intestines.

[Garbage Man]

1. open garbage can lid
2. insert turtle
3. close garbage can lid
all done.

[Bubba]

Flush the toilet and the turtle take care of itself.

[FJH1]

Can't comment of dressing it out, but it reminded me of a story from when I was much younger. When I was about 7 years old my neighbor and I hooked a 20# snapper. My buddy runs home through the woods to get his dad (big hunter and fisherman). Well, dad wasn't home, but Clara the cleaning lady was there. Clara was about a 300# colored woman and it was quite a sight to see her running through the woods (a solid 1/2 mile) in her dress with a butcher knife in her hand saying "Lordy, Lordy, we's gonna have turtle soup tonight". She took a big stick, got the snapper to bite it and off with it's head. She carried that thing back to the house and took it home with her. The next week she said that the soup was wonderful. Thanks for bringing back the memory.

Best Regards,

FJH

[Mo]

What color did Clara be?

[cisco]

A simple, but tasteful basic black dress is always appropo.

[Question]

Should not the question be "How to undress a turtle"

[Okay then]

If the turtle is a male, that would make it a cross dresser. But hey, I'm an enlightened sort,if he wants a black dress and maybe 7 inch stilletto heels, so be it.

[Juls_WI]

I remember my Dad saying that when he was young they used to catch snappers for turtle soup. The one thing I remember him saying, is that they would cut the heads off and hang them upside down to drain the blood out before cleaning.
As to how to clean, or "dress" a turtle, I can't help you there. I never did it. Heck, I have never even eaten turtle soup!

Juls

[THUMPER]

I caught lots of Snappers as a boy. We sold them to the local Chinese Restaurant. Apparently the turtles was the base for their secret sauces. We caught them live and kept them in a pen for a number of days before the "dressing".

[mossboss]

I use to enjoy a meal once in a while, but when I found out that most of those snappers were born well before my time I felt that it was not right taking something so old.