0:00

Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart

0:02

Radio. Welcome

0:27

back to the show Ridiculous Historians.

0:29

Thank you so much for tuning

0:32

in. Today's a day

0:34

where we talk not turkey,

0:36

but turtles. Uh. My name

0:38

is Ben. There's this this handsome

0:41

guy who does this show

0:43

with me. His name is Noel Brown. And

0:46

he was, uh, we were hanging

0:48

out off air earlier and

0:51

he was a little bit, uh, a

0:53

little bit mad about his headphones. Today

0:55

it was a little bit miffed about my cam

0:57

situation. Yeah, as what we call it in the biz.

1:00

Hands Um. Yeah. Yeah. One thing,

1:02

this is a word to the wise. Don't ever have

1:04

children, because they will take your stuff

1:06

with impunity and never return

1:09

it.

1:12

The look is its own story. But yeah,

1:15

I'm basically wearing the type of like little

1:18

crappy plastic headphones that would have come

1:20

with like a Sony discman, you know

1:22

in the nineties. I feel like

1:24

I should be listening to like, you know, throwing

1:26

copper By Live right now in my in my

1:29

ears, um, but instead we're talking about

1:31

turtles. Turtle power, soup

1:33

power, Turtle soup power. Remember the amazing

1:37

pizza ad campaign of the nineteen

1:39

nineties where like the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

1:41

were in a glam rock band and there was a whole

1:43

soundtrack that they made with songs about

1:45

pizza and being turtles. Am

1:48

I the only one that is this like a Mandela

1:50

Effects situation. I actually don't remember

1:52

this. That's our super producer, Casey

1:55

Pegram. I just

1:57

remember they had a song. It was like this anthemic

1:59

song. It was like where the tur Turtles?

2:02

You can count on us

2:06

Mutant Ninja Turtles.

2:09

It was sort of on the like cusp of the eighties

2:11

and like the Rising Tide of the nineties, but it's

2:13

still was very like hair metal.

2:16

Uh, look it up. There must be videos around. I

2:18

would say it's on the cusp of K pop as

2:21

far as the zeit guys, you know, the

2:23

Turtles could have been bts.

2:26

Uh they're on the way. They

2:28

were missing maybe three members. Uh,

2:31

you're giving yourself hard time. No, you're

2:34

saying these are not your cans,

2:36

but your mock cans. Uh

2:40

right, Well, I mean they technically are. Can't

2:42

there's just substandard. But

2:44

I love the word mock by the way,

2:47

I think it's it's got a nice ring to it,

2:49

and of course it means false counterfeit

2:52

some sort of stand in, but it

2:54

doesn't necessarily imply poor quality.

2:57

Wonderful point. Yeah, today's episode

3:00

is about a

3:03

thing that may be weird

3:05

to a lot of people. Here we're talking

3:07

about it off air before we started rolling

3:09

today. It's about turtle soup

3:12

and mock turtle suit. We've

3:15

talked in the past about the wildest

3:18

things we have eaten, by which I

3:20

mean the most scrumptious

3:22

things in violation of the soft

3:24

cultural taboos in the

3:27

West. You know, you can eat

3:29

a pig, you cannot eat

3:31

a cat. Right, you can eat

3:34

cow, you cannot eat

3:36

a dog, etcetera, etcetera,

3:38

etcetera. Turtles are different,

3:42

right, for a long long time, people

3:45

eight a lot of turtles.

3:47

If you go back through the menus

3:50

of yesteryear in the United

3:52

States, you will see turtle

3:55

soup offered as sort

3:57

of a flex. You know. It's

4:00

like, now we're in a fancy place if

4:03

we see turtle soup

4:05

on the menu, specifically sup

4:08

It's strange, isn't it that

4:11

it no longer exists

4:13

today? Like like if you go to the

4:15

fanciest restaurant in Atlanta,

4:18

which is universally

4:20

acknowledged, check me on this guy's as

4:23

a restaurant named Bacchanalia. If

4:25

you, guys are familiar good things,

4:27

never never had the had the pleasure. It's

4:30

uh. It's a nice place,

4:32

it's a hefty place for your wallet.

4:35

But if you go even there, you

4:37

will not see turtle soup on

4:39

the menu. So what happened?

4:42

How did this like, how did

4:44

this become a phenomenon in the

4:46

world of cuisine? How did

4:48

it become so popular? And

4:51

then why is it not as popular

4:53

now? Yeah, I actually just did a quick

4:56

quick google wise turtle soup not eating

4:58

anymore? And you know the number one reason

5:00

is uh, probably the obvious one.

5:02

Many species of turtles are endangered. Um.

5:05

And it turns out that the species of turtles

5:08

that were most popular were ones

5:10

that today would be considered uh

5:12

on the endangered list, like the Chelonia midas

5:15

or the green sea turtle of

5:17

the Caribbean, which could weigh up to a hundred pounds.

5:20

In England in particular, in the mid

5:22

seventeen hundreds, you would see this dish

5:24

on tavern menus. But it would

5:26

have been, like you said, men a bit of a flex.

5:28

It would have been up there with some of the most

5:31

expensive and kind of rarefied items

5:33

even at you know, a local tavern

5:35

or a pub um because

5:38

they had to be freshly caught. Right.

5:40

There was no shipping frozen

5:42

turtles all the way from the Caribbean to London

5:45

because at the time, of course, refrigeration was

5:47

not it's a thing, at least to

5:50

the degree that it is now. Certainly they could keep

5:52

things on ice, but these

5:55

turtles had to be shipped alive

5:57

and and kept in these special tanks.

6:00

Uh. Kind of like lobsters at the grocery store,

6:02

only much larger because again these were hundred

6:04

pound creatures. Um. And

6:07

the soup itself was also made

6:09

with some pretty fancy ingredients

6:11

like Madeira wine. That was kind of a

6:13

simmered broth where that was the base and

6:15

then it was seasoned with cayenne peppers and

6:17

anchovies. So the whole thing could

6:20

often take like half a day to make,

6:22

almost like the way uh really

6:24

fine raman broth takes

6:26

a really long time to make that like bone

6:29

broth, you know, you see the the experts

6:32

or for fun, it really does take a lot to

6:34

make that broth. Um. Thankfully, fu

6:37

and ramen are are still relatively

6:39

affordable. Oh yes, yes,

6:42

you make an excellent point here in u

6:44

there was no refrigeration. This

6:47

was like ordering crab legs

6:49

at a restaurant in terms of

6:52

dollar value. Right, this is the most

6:55

expensive thing on the menu. You

6:57

take out your deity one to impress

6:59

them. You say, order whatever

7:02

you want, and then your date

7:04

looks askance and you say,

7:07

yes, even the turtle soup

7:10

for you, my darling, anything You

7:12

really loved me enough

7:15

to let me eat this

7:17

weird, scaly broth based

7:20

dish, right right, that's

7:22

that's one of the questions. Will explore why

7:24

soup? Why? Why is it soup

7:27

rather than turtle freakacy?

7:30

You know what I mean? Fileto turtle?

7:32

Right there we go. Yes, so we

7:35

have to wonder how did these turtles

7:37

come to be shipped to England

7:39

in the first place. As

7:42

written in Culinary Lore, one

7:45

of the explanations is

7:47

that turtles provided

7:50

protein during sea voyages.

7:53

Right. It's it's very easy to find,

7:57

or it was back in the day. Very

7:59

easy need to find, catch and

8:02

eat them. And as any kid

8:04

who has ever had a box turtle

8:07

as a pet knows, turtles

8:09

are very easy to capture and

8:11

keep alive, so they're not like fish.

8:14

You don't have to have an aquarium, just have

8:17

a little standing water and

8:19

your turtle friend can splash

8:22

around and live their turtle life around

8:25

the sailors who will later consume

8:28

it. So they carried it all the way back to Europe,

8:30

and then people were like royalty

8:33

aristocrats and so on, said,

8:35

what's the most impressive thing you

8:38

found in your travels and your adventures

8:41

to the west. And they would say,

8:44

well, we found this weird thing. It's like

8:46

a snake, but it's got

8:48

a it's got the shell. Uh,

8:51

here you go. And I said, what do you do with them?

8:54

And they said, we eat them. Yeah, crack

8:56

them open and and and eat them up, because again,

8:58

remember these are very large uh. And obviously,

9:01

you know, sea voyages were very long

9:03

and arduous, and um was

9:05

hard to keep fresh meat and fresh

9:08

supplies on the ship. Typically it was like salted

9:10

meats or dried you know, fruits

9:12

and things like that that could be preserved and you

9:15

know, not spoiled during

9:17

the long uh trips to see but

9:19

they could kind of keep this as fresh

9:21

meat on hand. Um, and it

9:23

was probably one of the tastier options.

9:26

You hear stories of like uh,

9:28

seafaring folk Uh, you know, sailors

9:30

and whatnot, like catching like albatrosses

9:33

and seabirds and things like that, and they're apparently

9:35

just really gamy and disgusting and

9:38

not pleasant at all. And you know,

9:40

I have not had turtle soup personally,

9:42

but for some reason, I'm picturing it maybe

9:44

tasting a little bit like alligator meat,

9:47

only because of the consistency of their scales

9:49

and their skin and whatnot. Um, so I

9:52

would argue that the turtle was

9:54

the original chicken of the sea. There

9:57

we go. I think I think you earned

9:59

that one. The

10:05

thing is, you know, the albatross

10:08

is a terrible bird to

10:10

kill. In the world of

10:12

sailor and maritime

10:15

superstitions. We should absolutely

10:17

do an episode on maritime

10:20

superstitions because it's good.

10:22

It's gonna be a two parter, it has to be. Uh,

10:25

turtles can be kept alive. They

10:27

don't really have the means to wander

10:30

off once you get them on the ship.

10:32

Right. You may wonder, folks,

10:36

how turtles

10:38

became so so

10:40

very popular. As we said,

10:43

it's because they were specifically

10:46

Chelonia midas green

10:49

sea turtles. They

10:51

can weigh up to a hundred pounds, right,

10:53

the size of a dog and

10:56

the size of a large dog. I guess

10:58

I should say, Casey, what's the average

11:01

size of a dog in your opinion?

11:03

Oh jeez, the average size of a dog.

11:05

Don't google it is a hundred pounds

11:08

a big dog. That's a big dog. That's

11:10

a big dog. Okay, Casey on the

11:12

case. These turtles

11:14

are the size of a Casey verified

11:17

large dog and at

11:19

their peak, as far as

11:22

their soup career, these

11:25

turtles, the specific green

11:27

seed turtles were being

11:29

shipped live from

11:31

the West Indies at a rate of fifteen

11:35

thousand per year shipped

11:37

live. So at some point

11:40

there was a ship that just went from

11:42

England to the

11:44

Indies to get turtles.

11:47

No way, right, no way,

11:49

they were doing other stuff. Surely there wasn't

11:51

just a turtle trade, was there. Average

11:54

size by the punds is

11:56

a big gass dog always

12:00

coming through Casey on the case A second

12:03

time turtle trade. I mean

12:05

yeah, I would say fifteen thousand

12:08

live turtles being shipped

12:10

from the West Indies a year would constitute

12:13

its own trade. That's a lot of live

12:15

turtles. But you know a lot of things

12:17

were being shipped back and forth on those

12:19

routes, so it was just kind of part of

12:21

the party, I think. Um, but it's

12:24

because the stuff really really was catching

12:26

on, because you know,

12:28

when the sailors brought the turtles

12:30

back and the royals started, they started getting

12:32

a taste for it, started getting a taste

12:35

uh, and they actually

12:38

felt or culinarily speaking,

12:41

um, this is the answer to my question.

12:43

Uh. They believed that turtles

12:46

contain seven distinct

12:48

different types of meat all in one package.

12:51

Um, each have having their own unique

12:54

yet also um you know uh

12:57

analogous flavor uh, something

12:59

akin to pork and chicken and

13:01

beef and shrimp and veal and fish

13:04

and goats. Um, depending

13:06

on the type of turtle or the part

13:08

of the turtle. I'm not a cent sure.

13:10

This is blowing my mind. Um. And then

13:13

that that's coming from people who were really into

13:15

the stuff, who got that taste and I was talking about.

13:17

Then there are some folks did

13:19

not buy in. They describe the flavor

13:21

as being dirty, mushy, chewy.

13:24

To be fair, these are more textures than flavors, uh

13:27

and muddy. Yeah, that's

13:29

the thing. You know. You hear this

13:31

sometimes with people who

13:33

eat shark or eat

13:36

catfish. Right, they'll say, oh,

13:39

uh, this taste of the

13:41

things this has eaten. One

13:44

note here there are a lot of people who will tell

13:46

you not to eat a large

13:49

catfish, the reasoning

13:51

being that one can only eat so

13:53

much garbage before one becomes

13:56

a thing. The taste of garbage. Oh

13:58

yeah, and let's all be real. I mean, if we've

14:01

ever seen turtles in the wild, chances

14:03

are they're nibbling on something slimy

14:05

and gross. I had two pet turtles.

14:08

They were wonderful. I let

14:10

both of them go free in a Harry

14:12

and the Henderson's moment. I

14:15

also want to point out that while

14:18

the turtle trade was at

14:21

its height, at its peak, uh,

14:24

the Atlantic slave

14:26

trade was occurring.

14:30

So this this happens

14:32

within that context, right, and

14:36

the qualities, as they were

14:38

called at the time, what would

14:40

become the United States. Of

14:42

course, they looked over and they said,

14:45

look at this, just down

14:48

the maritime street from

14:50

us. The king and

14:52

all the King's men are taking

14:55

these amazing turtles.

14:58

They taste of seven

15:01

different distinct types of meat,

15:03

and we're not allowed to have those.

15:06

That's too fancy for us,

15:08

apparently. And they

15:11

also got into it the the American

15:14

colonists of the time,

15:16

we should also mention, of course, this was

15:18

not a new thing to the people who

15:20

actually lived in the places

15:23

that would become called the Caribbean

15:25

and the United States. People totally

15:28

ate turtles. They didn't think it

15:30

was a necessarily super

15:32

fancy thing. You know,

15:35

they didn't idealize or

15:37

fetishize it the same way

15:40

that perhaps the Europeans did.

15:42

Uh. If Casey nol

15:45

you and I went to

15:48

the early US

15:50

colonies, we would be eating

15:52

turtles. We would not be eating

15:55

the big fancy Caribbean turtles.

15:57

Probably we would be eating snapping

16:00

turtles, which are super

16:02

gross looking creatures. I don't

16:04

know if that if have you guys seen one of

16:06

these in person? Yeah, back to the Ninja

16:08

Turtles movie, Uh, Ninja Turtles too, Secret

16:11

of the Ooze. You may recall the

16:13

large mutated snapping turtle that was

16:16

I think paired with some sort of werewolf esque

16:18

creature. That was the They were the batties

16:20

in that movie. Tell you Bebop and rock

16:22

Steady No no, no, no, the

16:25

names. Yeah, but there was a snapping

16:28

turtle and then like a wolf kind of creature and

16:30

they were they were shredders, minions and

16:32

and and Ninja turtles too. Secret

16:34

of the ooze. But yeah, that started off as

16:36

a little baby snap and turtle because they have sort of more of

16:38

a triangular pointy beak

16:40

situation and they really will take

16:42

off a finger if you're not careful. But

16:45

that didn't stop intrepid early American

16:48

settlers in Plymouth Colony. Uh,

16:50

you would even see them eating the turtles

16:53

eggs. And nothing pisces off

16:55

a mama snapping turtle more than you're trying

16:57

to steal her eggs. In fact,

16:59

there's conject sure that turtle soup

17:01

of some kind might have or

17:03

would likely have been on the menu at the

17:05

very first Thanksgiving um.

17:07

But they you know, wouldn't have been as fancy

17:10

as as the version that we were talking

17:13

about from England. It would have been a more simplified

17:15

kind of version because of what they had at their disposal.

17:18

By the Revolutionary War times, turtle

17:21

soup was a staple, an

17:23

absolute favorite. You'd see it

17:25

in cookbooks across the country. And that's

17:27

how you know something's really broken through

17:29

is when you start seeing recipes for

17:31

it and like, you know, the Hinz Family

17:33

cookbook or whatever, Toca and

17:37

that's it. That's it. Toca

17:40

was the wolf guy Razzolator was the was

17:42

the snapper. Alligator snapping

17:44

turtle was crazy.

17:46

I am a bit sad. Admittedly,

17:49

alligator snapping turtles are

17:51

vulnerable species. You're absolutely

17:54

right they may have been

17:56

eating turtle soup in

17:58

some form of Thanksgiving. It did

18:00

not have tomatoes, it did not have

18:02

shary, it was not fancy.

18:05

All the early colonists agreed that

18:07

the flavor, however, was

18:09

scrump dittally umptuous. There's

18:12

nothing like a good turtle

18:14

soup, and the colonists

18:16

began to identify this with

18:20

the concept of democracy. How

18:23

weird is that? You know?

18:25

It's right, it's not. It's not

18:27

difficult to hunt a turtle,

18:30

unfortunately, apologies

18:32

to any turtles in the audience. Your

18:35

evasion skills are your dump stat

18:37

You could find turtles hanging

18:40

out in your neck of the woods,

18:42

whether you were wealthy

18:45

or whether you were poor, and

18:48

you will find in the historical

18:50

record many many famous,

18:54

like influential early US

18:56

figures who were super

18:59

into turtle soup. They loved it,

19:01

and need to backtrack ever so slightly. Ben, I love

19:03

this idea of catching a turtle

19:06

representing democracy, and I see why

19:08

now, because it's the great equalizer. You

19:10

know, to catch a fox, he gotta

19:12

have fancy hounds. You know, to

19:15

do a rabbit hunt or something, you have to have like specialty

19:17

gear and like a whole crew and all

19:20

of that and horses and all that whatever that stuff.

19:22

Turtle you can just catch one in your backyard.

19:24

Little kids can catch turtles. I have there

19:27

for everybody, including John Adams,

19:29

who, upon voting

19:31

for independence in Philadelphia on July

19:34

four a, seventeen seventies six, celebrated

19:37

with a steaming, piping hot bowl

19:39

of turtle soup and George Washington.

19:42

When the war, the Revolutionary War was over,

19:44

he met with his officers

19:47

at France's tavern in Manhattan,

19:50

which was famously personified

19:52

with a freestyle rap battle in

19:54

the musical Hamilton's Uh for a

19:56

you know this little soare uh presumably

19:59

with some with some turtle soup, and also before

20:01

Aaron Burr also featured in Hamilton's

20:04

Murdered the Titular Hamilton's.

20:06

Both were members of something called the

20:09

Hoboken Turtle Club, where

20:11

members would kick it and eat turtle

20:13

soup with boiled eggs and brandy.

20:16

Okay, I can't go with them all

20:18

the way I'm not anti

20:20

boiled egg. I'm

20:24

skeptical of the

20:27

contribution of boiled egg can make

20:29

to a good bowl of turtle soup. It

20:32

is a real thing. The Hoboken Turtle

20:34

Club is the brainchild

20:38

of a former captain serving under

20:40

George Washington, a guy named John

20:42

Stevens. He got super

20:45

rich through real estate and

20:48

various inventions, most

20:50

notably a screw driven steamboat.

20:53

Uh. He was super into turtles

20:55

because he wanted to eliminate their population.

20:59

I also love the idea, like that's

21:01

the thing people have, these weirdly

21:04

specific clubs and extra

21:06

curricular activities. Like

21:09

if you guys started a weirdly

21:11

specific club about food, Noel,

21:14

would you have one immediately? Do you have one

21:16

that you can think of immediately? Like this

21:19

is Noel Brown's weirdly specific

21:22

food club. You know. Um,

21:24

when I was a kid, when I was once a young German

21:26

boy growing up in in Germany,

21:29

UM, I was a huge fan of

21:31

scargo, which is kind of

21:33

a weird one for a little kid, but you know,

21:36

my parents were into it. I liked

21:38

it. My mom always you know, never

21:40

let the facts and the way of a good story and says, know

21:43

you and you were a small German boy, you

21:45

ate you'll wait and escar go up

21:47

and down the German countryside,

21:50

because that's how she talks, because she's an heiress

21:53

of sorts. But maybe I would have. And

21:55

then the Noel Brown Scargo Society

21:57

because it's not something people talk about much

22:00

anymore. And uh, I think it's a bad rap.

22:02

I like the texture, it's chewy,

22:04

it's got a nice ummmy to it, and it's just a great

22:07

vehicle for garlic and garlic butter. It's

22:09

sunctious. What about you, Casey? Okay.

22:11

One one real life eccentricity of mine

22:14

is that when I was a kid, I enjoyed a delicacy

22:16

known as a mustard sandwich, which

22:19

was a sandwich with mustard

22:22

and nothing else. And this was

22:24

met with a great deal of consternation by

22:26

a kindergarten teacher of mine Casey's Mustard

22:29

Sandwich Club. I don't know if I'll

22:31

just kind of lurk. I don't know if I want to be

22:33

an inducted, but I'm interested to see

22:35

what goes on behind those closed doors.

22:37

I have to. I have to fess up, like I have not myself

22:40

been a member in a number of years. So um,

22:42

no hard feelings if you're if you're not looking to join,

22:44

No, Well, taste evolve over

22:47

time. You know, you may have been ahead

22:49

of the curve because I've read

22:51

several studies showing that people

22:54

in younger years prefer ketchup, and

22:57

as the age into adulthood, prefer

23:00

mustard if they

23:02

had to choose. Nothing

23:04

like this is happening with turtles.

23:07

People are all on board.

23:09

In the US. They're like, man, you know what's

23:11

awesome turtle soup. William

23:14

Howard Taft is like he's

23:16

asked about what his favorite

23:19

meal is and he

23:21

says turtle soup is

23:24

one of his top tens. And he

23:26

also says he chose the

23:28

chef of the White House based

23:31

primarily on the guy's ability

23:33

to cook turtle in any

23:35

form. And we have to mention again,

23:38

Remember I I I said that

23:40

this was occurring during

23:43

the slave trade, right during

23:45

the Middle Passage, when there

23:47

were vast, systemic,

23:50

unforgivable atrocities

23:53

against human beings. Right, you

23:56

may not be surprised

23:58

to find fellow ridiculous as storians

24:01

that wealthy Southerners loved

24:06

turtle soup. Of course,

24:08

turtles were were, and hopefully

24:11

will still be abundant in the south.

24:13

The plantation owning class

24:16

picture the mint julup

24:19

and the sear sucker suit. Every

24:22

so often they said, ma, this

24:24

parishian heat, we should

24:27

throw a turtle frolic.

24:30

That's what they call them. They had these parties they

24:32

called the turtle frolics. That sounds fun,

24:34

it does if you're not there at the

24:37

time, because again, this is

24:40

this is terrible, terrible stuff

24:42

is man's in humanity demand.

24:45

But the turtle frolic itself is

24:47

wild. They would have these turtle

24:50

shells. These were the Caribbean turtles,

24:52

by the way, the ones that are over a hundred

24:54

pounds. Uh. They would

24:56

have these three ft long shells

24:59

that were turned upside

25:01

down as bulls for

25:04

the turtle soup. You know, have you ever

25:06

seen the inside of a turtle shell. It's it's got it's kind

25:08

of like where the spine is fused to

25:10

the shell and there's it's

25:12

it's a little macabre if you think about it

25:14

now. I mean, I guess you know, eating an

25:16

animal directly out of its

25:19

shell is always going to be a little on the grizzly

25:21

side if you think about it enough. But yeah,

25:24

lit Graham,

25:30

but moving on from the turtle frolic.

25:32

In America in the eighteen

25:35

sixties, turtle soup

25:37

for turtle meat was considered

25:39

like a very special

25:42

occasion related delicacy. Abraham

25:45

Lincoln Um at least was

25:48

personally responsible for pushing for this narrative

25:51

after his second inauguration in eighteen

25:53

sixty five. The inaugural

25:55

meal began with a course of

25:58

turtle uh likely oiled

26:00

in a stew with cream

26:03

and butter and eggs, so more

26:05

like a uh like if you've ever had

26:07

oyster stew, which I quite

26:09

like. My mom makes it for Christmas every year. It's

26:11

sort of a tradition, but it is sort of a creamy

26:14

buttery. You could put a little sherry in

26:16

there, or like maybe she crab soup. That's

26:19

kind of what this reminds me of. I

26:21

could go for that, And I'm imagining the turtle meat

26:23

would be minced, so you wouldn't be getting

26:25

like big, old, weird, recognizable chunks

26:27

of turtle. One would hope.

26:30

I'm intrigued, you know, aside

26:32

from the endangered element

26:34

of this, I would certainly be game to

26:36

give this type of version of this dish

26:38

a taste. But only folks like

26:40

you know, the president. Yeah,

26:43

I could have could afford this as a special

26:45

occasion for their inaugural. That's because

26:47

they were becoming much more rare.

26:49

And I'm wondering if it was because there was just a run

26:51

on these turtles, you know. And also

26:53

remember, as I want to point out to remember, how we talked

26:55

about how Charles Darwin supposedly eight

26:58

every animal that he studied. Yes,

27:00

Jack O'Brien from dally Zeitgeist

27:03

introduced us to that troubling in

27:06

corroborative fact. I looked into it.

27:08

Jack was right because he was a part of a society

27:11

too that just like eight weird animals.

27:14

If I'm not mistaken, it's called Boland

27:16

society. That's the one. But here's the thing,

27:19

Uh, despite the scarcity of

27:21

of these uh succulent reptiles,

27:24

folks still wanted their turtle soup,

27:26

or at very least something resembling

27:29

it. So that's when I

27:31

don't know who figured it out, who

27:33

coined this, but that's when

27:36

something called mock turtle soup

27:38

started to come into fashion as an alternative.

27:41

Yes, yes, very similitude the

27:44

appearance of being true or real.

27:47

Um, before we get into this.

27:50

I want everyone listening to day

27:53

to think a little bit about

27:56

stuff like crab rangoon. How

27:58

much crab do you think is in that fans

28:01

of American Chinese food and a

28:03

negligible amount. I mean, god, it's

28:05

like zero a fleck, you know.

28:08

Zero. The

28:11

thing is like, we have imitation

28:14

crab, we have we have

28:16

a lot of things that I

28:19

would say are aspirational in

28:21

terms of flavor. You're totally right,

28:24

and yet people like some of them for

28:26

their own reasons, like imitation crab

28:28

has it has a thing about it like you can't

28:31

really get it anywhere else, doesn't really taste

28:33

like crab. It kind of looks

28:35

like crab. It's just I don't even know what we've we've talked

28:37

about it. I think it contains other fish,

28:40

like halibit that's like pressed and has

28:42

food coloring to give it the appearance of the little

28:44

red parts of the crab. But it's also

28:46

very low calorie, uh, and so a

28:48

lot of people like eating it, like in a diet

28:50

situation. And it's also what you always get

28:52

on the inside of like a cheap kind of California

28:55

roll right right there. And for

28:57

example, there are sometimes I prefer to

28:59

cook with imitation crab,

29:02

depending on the stack I'm making. If

29:05

anything, the name imitation

29:07

crab is bad marketing. They

29:09

just should have sold it as its

29:11

own thing. What do you call it, though, Ben,

29:14

let's have a quick brainstorm. Sessh, it

29:16

would be a good alternative name. Imitation

29:18

crab, fish, press

29:21

pressed fish, fish, butter, fish

29:23

butter. I'm into that. Fish butter

29:25

is weird. It's not quite there. It's a little

29:27

weird. But but let's get there. I think we're

29:29

nailing that. Umami. They also call

29:32

it crab stick sometimes crab

29:34

stick. Yeah, but it's imitation crab

29:36

stick. Yeah. So anyway,

29:39

turtles, right, uh So,

29:41

not everybody as the president in

29:44

the United States, a

29:47

problem that continues to the modern

29:49

day. There are more than three

29:52

hundred and twenty million people

29:54

in the US who are not

29:56

currently the president. We

30:00

had a we had a recent new addition

30:03

to our ranks. Uh So,

30:05

if you are, like most

30:08

people, not the president

30:10

of the United States, you

30:13

cannot afford to eat turtle.

30:16

It's expensive because

30:18

in some parts of the country. Again to our

30:20

earlier point, there is no refrigeration.

30:23

In some parts of the country, you

30:26

can't get turtles. So you

30:28

might eat the next best

30:30

thing, mock turtle

30:33

soup. And and

30:35

let's let's make sure everybody

30:37

feels their self worth their value.

30:40

Don't think these other people are fancier

30:42

than you are. At Abraham

30:44

Lincoln's first inauguration, they

30:47

did not serve turtle soup.

30:50

They served mock turtle

30:52

soup because they couldn't get

30:54

those turtles from the

30:57

Caribbean that were considered, you know, the

30:59

def acto ingredient for turtle

31:02

soup. But everybody

31:04

at the inauguration, they're still super

31:06

happy. They thought

31:09

mock turtle soup was

31:11

not a joke but kind of a comparable

31:14

delicacy. Right. It's it's

31:16

like the Ikea furniture of turtle

31:18

soup. Okay, so what is

31:20

it? Uh?

31:23

This is adorable question. We pretty much know

31:25

what it is. Uh. And it's pretty

31:27

gross, isn't it. It's not

31:30

it's not like super wholesome, but

31:33

it is. It's definitely a thing. Why don't

31:35

kick it for us? It's just like where you put

31:37

all your leftover meat parts, um,

31:40

but it also contains other bits

31:42

to give it like a little more flavor. It's really kind

31:44

of all over the place. The real

31:47

gross one, the common ingredients

31:49

or like the secret ingredient is a

31:52

calf's head. I'm

31:54

assuming just boiled in there,

31:57

like so the skin kind of sloughs off

31:59

and to and then they take the skull out.

32:02

I wouldn't imagine you get your mock turtle soup

32:04

with a fully formed cow calf

32:06

skull in there. What a huge

32:08

turtle? Is this? Like kingcake?

32:12

I got the baby? Oh

32:14

yeah, but they would add things like beef,

32:17

ham, veggies, oysters,

32:19

uh, skin, tongue, brain,

32:23

and and and because they were

32:25

trying to mimic. And we haven't really uh

32:27

fully explained this, but

32:30

texture is a really

32:32

important part of the mock

32:34

turtle experience because turtle

32:36

meat, as it turns out, is quite gelatinous

32:41

um. And in order to achieve

32:43

that, you'd have boiled

32:45

various boiled meats. And again

32:47

I can imagine that all of the collagen and

32:49

things that would be that would would come off

32:52

when you boiled the calf's head would make

32:54

for quite a gelatinous texture.

32:57

Indeed. Yeah, and

32:59

part of the creation of mock

33:02

turtle soup depends on

33:04

the rendering of this fat right

33:06

in in the calf's head. Uh.

33:09

Look, other people are making their own turtle

33:12

soup at home or mock turtle soup.

33:14

And you can see recipes about this uh

33:17

anywhere from two on maybe

33:20

a little bit earlier. Current

33:22

companies and the modern day

33:25

here in also

33:27

had canned turtle

33:30

soup. Once upon a time, Hinz

33:33

had turtle soup, Campbell's

33:36

had turtle soup and

33:38

mocked turtle soup made of

33:40

that calf's head. And they

33:43

were advertising this toward

33:45

a demographic that could not afford

33:48

that beautiful, unctious,

33:51

weird flex turtle soup. Here's

33:54

why they were doing this. Most people

33:56

couldn't deal with the

33:59

process saying of the turtle

34:01

that would be made for proper turtle

34:04

soup. They would get a turtle that

34:06

was fifty sixty

34:08

pounds maybe more. They had

34:10

to kill it. They had to cut off the head.

34:12

They had to hang it by its hind legs,

34:15

its hind fins excuse me overnight

34:18

to drain. They had to cut the

34:20

fins off. They had to separate

34:22

the upper and lower shell from

34:24

the flesh it was.

34:26

It was involved. Then they had to clean it. They

34:28

had to get rid of the innards. They

34:30

had to preserve what they called

34:33

the green fat. And this

34:35

is what renders when you're cooking is

34:37

what gives it that unctious flavor. This

34:40

is why it's the calf's whole head.

34:43

And then after after you prepared this,

34:46

the soup, depending on the recipe you take,

34:49

is super complicated,

34:52

super complicated. It takes

34:54

hours and hours and hours. I'm

34:57

not walking away from that. Putton super is

34:59

appropriate here and it's hilarious.

35:01

These turtles themselves

35:04

are very expensive, and they

35:06

become more and more expensive because, just

35:09

like the fur trade around

35:11

this time, it's not sustainable.

35:14

They're taking too much from the land

35:16

and green turtles as a result

35:19

are almost hunted to extinction, which

35:21

makes the price higher and higher and higher.

35:23

We got a feedback loop at this point. Okay,

35:26

okay, there's so much more turtle

35:28

discussions to be had, but I think

35:30

we're gonna put a pin in this one until

35:33

next time. UM, thank you so much,

35:35

Ben for all of the amazing turtle talk.

35:37

Is going to be more to come, Noel, thank you,

35:39

and thanks to super producer Casey

35:42

Pegrham. Thanks to our research

35:45

associate, our number one

35:47

teenage ninja turtle, Gabe.

35:50

Hey Nold, what what ninja turtle

35:52

do you think Gabe would be? If we had to guess,

35:55

Oh, he's the smart one. What was that Leonardo?

35:58

No Donna? Yeah, I always Leonardo

36:00

was the leader. I guess Donna Tello

36:02

was the science. He one right, he had the

36:04

lab I think gave would be that one gave. You know

36:07

what Gave is like a vultron asked kind of figure.

36:09

He's like all of the ninja turtles rolled into

36:11

the one. He's the wit of Michael Angelo,

36:13

the braun and brave of

36:15

of of Raphael. You know, the leadership

36:18

qualities of Leonardo and the

36:20

intellect of Donna Tello all rolled up

36:22

into one admittedly non turtle

36:25

creature. And thanks as always

36:27

to our own. Uh. I don't

36:29

know whether he's a Taca or a razor,

36:32

but Jonathan strictly a k the quizier.

36:34

He's more of a super shredder kind

36:36

of figure there. It is the secret

36:38

of the ooze. Uh, thanks as

36:41

well to Christopher Hasiotis, uh

36:43

Eves, Jeff co and uh Noel. Thank

36:45

you to you man. This has been a

36:48

crazy ride. We ended up with another

36:50

two parter um. We did, indeed, And if

36:52

you want to tell us how you feel about this one,

36:55

I drop us a note. On social media

36:57

you can find us on Facebook, where we have a

36:59

group called the List Historians. Great

37:01

conversations and means sharing and all the good stuff

37:04

there to be had at your fingertips.

37:06

You can also find us as a show or as

37:08

individuals on social media's as well.

37:11

I am on Instagram pretty much exclusively

37:13

where I am at how Now, Noel Brown? How about

37:16

you? Man? You can send me turtle

37:18

recipes directly at Ben Bullying

37:20

hs W on Twitter or at Ben Bullying

37:23

on Instagram. We'll see you

37:25

next time, folks.

37:34

For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the

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