Turtle Soup Was Once All the Rage on US Menus

Food & Wine investigates the rise and fall of a dish once considered a delicacy in high-end restaurants throughout the US—turtle soup. The dish was all the rage 150 or so years ago, and the story explains how overfishing and changing tastes have all but wiped it off menus. Green sea turtles were typically the first type of turtle sought for the dish, but as numbers plummeted, cousins such as snapping turtles and terrapins were next on the list. In fact, no "dish was more prestigious than terrapin in the 19th-century United States," per the story, quoting from food historian Paul Freedman in the book Man-Eating Monsters: Anthropocentrism and Popular Culture. The popularity of turtle soup combined with a growing scarcity of turtles even led to an odd foodie phenomenon—the advent of popular "mock turtle soup," made with alternatives such as the head of a calf.

Still, even mock turtle soup has lost much of its popularity, and "it's probably related to both the textures and the taste," historian Henry Voigt tells the magazine. Both versions of the soup were gelatinous, which is no longer in vogue. The soup hasn't died out entirely, though. Die-hards can still find it on the menu in New Orleans establishments, including Galatoire's, which uses meat sourced from local snapping-turtle farms. For those who don't care to indulge, the story by Elaine Velie offers this:

• "If you do try turtle, you'll find it doesn't quite taste like fish. It's closer to a meat in its flavor and texture, falling somewhere between chicken and veal. Some people say it tastes like alligator meat, which is also often compared to chicken." (Read the full story.)