What's really in turtle soup? We asked the experts about the New Orleans restaurant staple.

Turtle soup at Rosedale restaurant in New Orleans on Tuesday, November 15, 2016. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune) CHRIS GRANGER Adding sherry to turtle soup, a Commander's Palace classic also served next door at its casual cafe Le Petit Bleu.

(Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save When Amy King came to New Orleans on a family trip, she was intrigued by an item she saw on two menus: turtle soup. “Is there turtle meat in the soup?” she asked after returning home to Kansas City, Missouri. “And is there any history to explain this dish?” The answers, in order, are yes and yes.



Commander’s Palace, one of the restaurants she visited, serves about 400 gallons per month, said Lally Brennan, a co-owner of the Garden District institution. “It’s our No. 1 selling item,” said Ti Adelaide Martin, her cousin and a co-owner of the restaurant.

“I think it’s because it’s so damn good.” Although it’s billed as a soup, the thick dish, with 23 ingredients, is more like a stew, she said. “A bowl of turtle soup, a little bit of garlic bread and some red wine, and I’m good.

” But turtle meat accounts for only 40 percent of the meat in Commander’s Palace’s turtle soup, said Nat Currier, the chef de cuisine. The remaining 60 percent is veal, he said, because veal balances turtle meat’s intense flavor. The combination “just works,” Martin said.

A farm-raised supply Commander’s Palace uses alligator snapping turtles that are farm-raised because farms provide a steady supply, she said. The meat comes in chunks, but it wasn’t always that way, Martin said. “When I was a little girl, turtles used to come live [to the restaurant].

They’d be crawling around the kitchen, and I’d be naming them.” Turtle soup is available at other New Orleans restaurants, including Arnaud’s, Brennan’s, Mandina’s and Felix’s. It’s a dish that has been popular in Louisiana ever since the 1700s, when French settlers “ate anything that crawled across the yard,” said Tory McPhail, the former Commander’s Palace chef, in a New Orleans Eater interview.

“For centuries, the flavor was legendary, and, really, nothing said American democracy like turtle,” Jack Hitt wrote in Saveur magazine. “The poor man could often find a few slow-moving specimens hanging out at the backyard well, even as the privileged man sought out its refined flavor.” That tradition was as old as America itself, wrote Hitt, who said that in July 1776, John Adams celebrated the new nation’s independence with a bowl of turtle soup.

From the White House to San Francisco By the mid-19th century, the most popular turtle variety was the diamondback terrapin, which, according to an NPR story, was available from Cape Cod to the Gulf Coast and made its way onto menus from the White House to San Francisco. But the terrapin’s popularity led to overharvesting and the possibility of extinction. This development forced restaurants to turn to farm-raised turtles for soup meat.

In September, the Center for Biological Diversity and 20 other organizations, including the Sierra Club and Project Terrapin, petitioned for federal protection of diamondback terrapins under the Endangered Species Act. No action has been taken, although a preliminary decision is required within 90 days. If that ruling is favorable, a year-long status review will be held.

Another government action – the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – may well have been a boon to the turtle population.

From 1920 until the amendment’s repeal in 1933, the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages was illegal in the United States. That ruled out the use of sherry, which is used to add favor to this dish. As far as the diamondback terrapin was concerned, the NPR story said, “Prohibition was the teetotaling dam that stemmed the tide of extinction.

” Curious Louisiana is a community-driven reporting project that connects readers to our newsrooms' resources to dig, research and find answers about the Pelican State. Bottom line: If you've got a question about something Louisiana-centric, click here to ask us or email us at [email protected].

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