Mock turtle soup

Mock turtle soup

Mock turtle soup is an English soup that was created in the mid-18th century as a cheaper imitation of green turtle soup. It often uses brains and organ meats to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original's turtle meat.

Mrs. Fowle's Mock Turtle Soup, from Martha Lloyd's Household Book:

"Take a large calf's head. Scald off the hair. Boil it until the horn is tender, then cut it into slices about the size of your finger, with as little lean as possible. Have ready three pints of good mutton or veal broth, put in it half a pint of Madeira wine, half a teaspoonful of thyme, pepper, a large onion, and the peel of a lemon chop't very small. A ¼ of a pint of oysters chop't very small, and their liquor; a little salt, the juice of two large onions, some sweet herbs, and the brains chop't. Stand all these together for about an hour, and send it up to the table with the forcemeat balls made small and the yolks of hard eggs."

Mock Turtle Soup is the basis for the character of the Mock Turtle in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the joke being that Mock Turtle Soup is supposedly made from Mock Turtles.

In the Oldenburg and Ammerland regions of Germany, Mockturtlesuppe—the English designation "mock turtle" retained—is a traditional meal, dating from the time of the personal union between the Kingdom of Hanover and the Kingdom of Great Britain.