[Sca-cooks] turtle meat source and period turtle meat recipes

[Stefan li Rous]

From the exotic-meats-msg Florilegium file:
<<< Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 12:16:33 -0400
From: "Philippa Alderton" <phlip at bright.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Thoughts on Food- reply, long.

As far as period oddities, Anthimus refers to organ meats such as kidneys,
stomach (tripe), matrix (sow belly), udder, liver, and many birds and
fishes, including lamphreys. Apicius refers to rose and violet wine, brain
sausages among many others, intestinal fat and intestines as casings,
nettles, smelt pie or sprat custard, ostrich, grane, thrush, figpeckers,
pheasant, and many other birds, sow's womb, tails and feet, lungs,chamois,
gazelle, wild sheep and dormouse, rays, squid, octopus and sea urchins, and
eels, including conger. Platina includes omentum,  maidenhair fern, heads
and giblets of capons and chickens, tounge, chicken and other animals
testicles testicles, porcupines and hedgehogs, brains and heads of all
species, eyes, hearts and lungs, liver, udders, spleens, kidneys, stomach,
fish eggs, several for hemp (cannabis), turtles, murex, and eels including
moray and conger.

Phlip >>>

<<< Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 11:06:46 -0500
From: Daniel Myers <edouard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] (LONG!) Dragon Dormant Baronial Investiture
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> Where would you get the right turtles? I guess, like one of our recent
> cooks did for quail (or some such), you could raise them. :-) But I
> suspect that would take a while.

I couldn't find any recipes off hand, but I did notice earlier this
week that there are turtles in two of the period paintings of fish
sellers.

Fishmongers, Vincenzo Campi (1580s)
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/c/campi/vincenzo/4fishmon.html

The Fishmonger's Shop, Bartolomeo Passerotti (1580s)
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/p/passerot/fishmong.html

- Doc >>>

<<< Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 21:30:33 -0500
From: patrick.levesque at elf.mcgill.ca
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Turtle Soup,	was: (LONG!) Dragon Dormant Baronial
	Investiture
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

> Medieval turtle soup? Recipe?

There are two recipes for turtles in the 'Ouverture de Cuisine'...  (which has
been webbed by Thorvald - my apologies, I don't have the URL handy, since I'm
working from a printed copy). One of them can be seen as a turtle soup, stew,
or turtle in broth... I haven't obviously experimented on it yet.

"Prennez la tortue, & couppez la teste,
<<131>>
& la laissez mourir, puis la mettez
boulir si longuement que vous pouuez
tirer l'escaille arriere de la chair: puis
vous osterez toute la peau que vous
trouuerez, & prennez la chair & les
oeufs s'il y en a, & la mettez esteuuer
auec bon bouillon, & mettez vn peu de
fleur de muscade, vn peu de poiure &
rosmarin, mariolaine, mente & beurre
fresche, & sel, & vin blanc ou verius,
& vn citron fresche par tranches, & le
laissez bien estuuer ainsi, & seruez."

> Where would you get the right turtles?

I haven't figured that part out yet... I believe turtles are now protected in
France (I don't know about the rest of Europe) and I haven't started to look
around here to see what's available.

Petru >>>

<<< 
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 05:58:42 -0700
From: James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Turtle Soup, 	was: (LONG!) Dragon Dormant
	Baronial Investiture
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

At 21:30 -0500 2005-03-13, patrick.levesque at elf.mcgill.ca wrote:
>>  Medieval turtle soup? Recipe?
>
>  There are two recipes for turtles in the 'Ouverture de Cuisine'... (which has
>  been webbed by Thorvald - my apologies, I don't have the URL handy, since I'm
>  working from a printed copy). One of them can be seen as a turtle soup, stew,
>  or turtle in broth... I haven't obviously experimented on it yet.

The French version was actually webbed by Thomas Gloning -- I was
one of the people who helped with the transcription.

The English translations by me are (draft form):

170. To prepare a tortoise.

Take the tortoise, and slit the throat, and let it die, then
put it to boil so long that you can pull the shell away from
the flesh: then you will remove all the skin that you find,
and take the flesh and the eggs if there are any, and put it
to stew with good stock, and add a bit of mace, a bit of pepper
and rosemary, marjoram, mint and fresh butter, and salt, and
white wine or verjuice, and a fresh [sweet] lemon in slices,
and let it stew well thus, and serve.

171. Otherwise. [Tortoise]

When the tortoise is well cooked, fricassee it in butter, a
fresh [sweet] lemon cut into slices on top, or make a sauce
on top with some toasted white bread, and some ground white
[blanched?] almonds, and strain all well through cheesecloth,
add sugar and ginger, and boil it so that it is thick, and add
the fricasseed tortoise, and you will serve [it] thus.

Thorvald


Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:43:57 -0500
From: patrick.levesque at elf.mcgill.ca
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Turtles, turtles, rha-rha-rha
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Found one supplier: New Orleans Seafood distributes frozen turtle  
flesh. They even accept on-line orders.

However, turtles are on the endangered species list. Import is prohibited in Canada without a license and a damn good reason to do so. Haven't found any domestic source for turtle meat up north yet...

(Acutually, I can get a license to bring some turtle flesh as souvenir, if I'm a tourist. I just don't see how I could get 20 pounds of turtle flesh to be considered a souvenir...)

I'll have to research something else, I guess.

Petru >>>

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****