Pond Turtles

[PD-Riverman]

I have a beaver made lake on my place with So many turtles laying on the downed logs on the sunny days. Do any of you eat these turtles?? I call them pond turtles, dark looking shell with yellow and black skin on its underside. Some of these turtles probably weigh 12/15 lbs. I have not tried a Search on Cooking Them, but figured some of you here know all about it. There was enough out there today to feed a Army!! Thanks

[Ken Scharabok]

On dressing out, the Wild Food Cookbook by Frances Hamerstrom gives the following directions:

"Scrub the decapitated turtle with laundry soap and a stiff brush until it is clean. Get a container of water, big enough to hold the turtle, boiling. When you have scrubbed off the leeches and green growths, boil the whole turtle for 30 or 40 minutes.

I like to work outdoors, so I take the turtle pot and dump it outside on the grass and leave it until the turtle is cool enough to handle. I turn it upside down and cut off the under shell. Again I let it cool.

There are seven different flavors of turtle meat. Some of the choicest lie along the backbone and it is almost hopeless to get this out if the turtle has not been boiled first. Now is the time to work with two dishpans. I toss the good meat into one and the discards into the others. When in doubt, I taste.

(Now, I would have a problem with this tasting as the meat might not be fully cooked enough to have killed various micro-critters which may still be in the meat.)

Muscle meat tends to be good, fat is often of low quality, and seek the liver carefully. It is often excellent, but the gall bladder must be cut away and discarded or its acrid taste will permeate, and your friends will wish that you had never come upon a turtle."

Says you can fry meat like chicken or pheasant. I suspected it is predominately used in soup.

One style of turtle trap I've seen in a catalog is basically a rectangular ring made of large diameter PVC pipe, with a net suspended inside and a platform on top of the pipe. Concept is turtles craw up on the platform to sun and, when spooked, drop off, some inside where they cannot climb back out. Seems like catalog was Ken's Hatchery in Georgia. You can probably do a Google search on turtle trap.

[Sand Flat Bob]

They are harvesting red cheeked turtles out of ponds here in Texas and shipping them to China, where there is a high demand for them in cooking. I have no idea of how they are processing them before shipping or if they are shipping them whole by air freight and processing in China. There was an article in the newspaper about the turtles becoming rare if the harvesting continues. My tanks are full of them. Don't think they will become rare.

Bob

[Cheribelle]

I have only eaten snapping turtle or softshell turtle. It is good though. We sometimes find one crossing a road, and I think Dad used to trap them. We always put them in a big tank of clean water for a while, to help clear the mud out, then clean. My DH cuts off the head, then nails the tail to a tree and lets it bleed out. It is work to clean one, but he is really good at it. I suppose if we could get a pond turtle that big it would be worth a try once. Certainly Never have scrubbed one with laundry soap, Or boiled it before cleaning Or tasted it as he cleaned. That sounds crazy to me.

[tnokie]

I always elimanated the turtles from the ponds. Heard they were good eat but never had the guts to try. But I do like fish and if the pond is over run with turtles there will be no fish!

[jen74145]

When I was little, my aunt and uncle had a good sized pond and were always having to thin the turtle population. Part of it was uncle was worried about the small children of the family swimming in the same lake as fifteen pound turtles, lol. One of those things I swear was bigger then I was, but it wasn't a snapper, just your typical red ear slider.

IIRC, my aunt scrubbed them, soaked them in cold water (maybe it was brine) then turned them into a yummy soup. She used whatever garden veggies she had on hand; almost always tomatoes, and turnips or potatoes from the cellar. She made a sort of turtle and dumplings that was just so incredibly good. Sometimes she would bread and fry the turtle, then add it to a soup, or make gumbo with other odds and ends of meat.

Lately I've been wanting to catch a few turtles at our favorite lake and cook them; I miss her soups, lol! She's long gone so no hope of getting the recipe, but I think I can piece it together.