The KaiKai Book

Turtle meat was highly prized by English diners from the 18th century forward. This exotic meat was the focal point of for wealthy feasts. Preparations were complicated; presentations were exquisite. Early recipes were served in the orginal shell. Mock turtle soup, substituting calve's heads for the title meat, surface shortly thereafter. Advertised as tasting like the "real thing," mock versions were readily consumed by middle class persons on both sides of the pond. Canned turtle soups (regular & mock) were introduced in the last quarter of the 19th century.

"The earliest recipes for dressing sea turtle were given by Richard Bradley (1732), and ascribed by him to a Barbados lady. ..He did not mention turtle soup, but this soon became a standard feature of English cookery books; it appeared, for example in the 4th edition (1751) of Hannah Glasse's famous book, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Turtle soup, prepared from the calipee (flipper meat) was elevated in the 19th century to become a 'must' for civic banquets and suchlike occasions; and, since it was difficult and expensive to make, recipes for Mock Turtle soup, of which first seems to have been in Hannah Glasse's 6th edition (1758), became increasingly frequent."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 711)

"An innovation in the middle years of the eighteenth century was turtle soup. At that time it was discovered that West Indian green turtles, siad to be far superior to the other local varieties in wholesomeness and rareness fo taste, could survive the shipboard journey to England if kept in tanks of fresh water. With them came recipes for cooking them 'in West India fashion', to furnish the feasts of the wealthy. A turtle of sixty or a hundred pounds was large enough to provide a whole first course in itself. Its belly and back were boiled and baked respectively, and laid out at the top and bottom of the table, the fins and guts were strewed in rich sauces to provide corner dishes, while a tureen of turtle soup, made from the head and lights, had the place of honour in the centre. Only a few people could aspire to turtle dinners; but mock turtle made its appearance in the cookery books almost as soon as the genuine article."
---Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago IL] 1991 (p. 225)

"Perhaps the most appreciated soup was turtle. The green sea turtle, so named because of its greenish fat, has been consumed for several hundred years and was once a major source of fresh food for exploring Europeans and pirates. Pliny write about cave-dwellers who ate turtle flesh although they worshipped the turtle. Throughout the 1600s and beyond, seafarers caught he great turtles and kept them on ships until they were killed and cooked...Turtle soup's virtue was that it did not 'cloy.' or produce ill effects, no matter the quantity eaten, even though it was often richly spiced...Isabella Beeton later pronounced turtle soup 'the most expensive soup brought to the table,' and advised that when live turtle was too dear [costly], many cooks used tinned turtle meat."
---Soup Through the Ages: A Culinary History with Period Recipes, Victoria R. Rumble [McFarland& Company:Jefferson NC] 2009 (p. 112-113)

"Turtles were found in abundance in the New World, and they were eaten from the beginning of European settlement. Terrapin turtles were particularly prized. Female turtles, or cow turtles, were treasured for the meat. The male, or bull turtles, had little value and were generally used for making soup. As turtle meat used in soup making was bland, it was usually spiced with red pepper. Turtles were easy to transport long distances and were held in pens until sold. Prior to the Civil War, they were so plentiful as to be considered slave food in the South. In the North, turtle meat and turtle soup were prized. The French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin enjoyed turtle soup in New York City during his stay in America in the 1790s. From the earliest American cookbooks, directions for making turtle soup were included. For instance, the longest and most complicated recipe in Amelia Simmon's American Cookery (1796) is for dressing turtles. She also includes a simpler recipe for preparing calf's head in the fashion of a turtle. Randolph's Virginia House-wife includes directions for making turtle soup...Turtle soup was difficult to prepare at home. As soon as turtles were killed, they had to be cooked. Because many turtles were extremely large, frequently weighing three hundred pounds, they were sold to cafes, taverns, and restaurants that had a high volume of business."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 464-5)

Turtle soup recipes

[1755:London]
"To dress a turtle the West Indian way
Take the turtle out of the water the night before you intend to dress it, and lay it on its back, in the morning cut its throat or the head off, and let it bleed well; then cut off the fins, scald, scale and trim them with the head, then raise the callepy (which is the belly or under-shell) clean off, leaving ot it as much meat as you conveniently can; then take for the back-shell all the meat and intrails, excpet the monsieur, which is the fat, and looks green, that must be baked to and with the shell; wash all clean with salt and water, and cut into pieces of moderate size, taking from it the bones, and put them with the find and head in a soop-pot, with a gallon of water, some salt, and two blades of mace. When it boils skim it clean then put in a bunch of thyme, parsley, savoury and young onions, and your veal part, except about one pound and a half, which must be made force-meat of as for Scotch collops, adding a little Cayan pepper; when the veal has boiled in the soop about an hour, take it out and cut it in pieces and put to the other part. The guts (which is reckoned the best part) must be split ovpen, scraped and made clean, and cut as the other parts, the size you think proper; then put them with the guts and other parts, except the liver, with half a pound of good fresh butter, a few shalots, a bunch of thyme, parsley, and a little savoury, seasoned with salt, white pepper, mace, three or four cloves beaten, a little Cayan pepper, and take care not to put too much then let it stew about half an hour over a good charcoal fire, ane put in a pint and a half of Madeira wine and as much of the broth as will cover it, and let it stew until tender. It will take four or five hours doing. When almost enough, skim it, and thicken it with flour, mixt with some veal broth, about the thickness of a fricasey. Let your force-meat balls be fried about the size of a walnut, and be stewed about half an hour with the rest; if any eggs, let thembe boiled and cleaned as you do knots of pullets eggs; and if none, get twelve or fouteen yolks of hard eggs: then put the stew (which is the callepash) into the back-shell, with the eggs all over, and put it into the oven to brown, or do it with a salamander. The callepy must be slashed in several places, and moderately seasoned, with pieces of butter, mixt with chopped thyme, parsley and young onions, with salt, white pepper and mace beaten, and a little Cayan pepper; put a piece on each slash and then some over, and a dust of flour; then bake it in a tin of iron dripping-pan, in a brisk oven. The backhesll (which is called the callepash) must be seasoned as the callepy, and baked in a dripping-pan, set upright, with four brickbats, or any thing else. An hour and a half will bake it, which must be done before the stew is put in. The fins, when boiled very tender, to be taken out of the soop, and put into a stew-pan, with some good veal gravy, not high-coloured, a little Madeira wine, seasoned and thickend as the callepash, and served in a dish by itself. The veal part may be made fiandos, or Scotch collops of. The liver should never be stewed with the callepahs, but always drest by itself, after any manner you like; except you separate the lights and heart from the callepash, and then always serve then together in one dish. Take care to strain the soop, and serve it in a tureen, or clean china bowl. Dishes. A Calleply, Lights, &c.--Soop-- Fins, Callepash. N.B. In the West Indies they generally souse the fins, and eat them cold, omit the liver, and only send to table the callepy, and soup. This is for a turtle about sixty pounds weight."
---The Art of Cooking Made Plain & Easy, Hannah Glasse, "Additions, as printed in the Fifth Edition," [Prospect Books: Devon] 1995 (p. 167)

[1847: South Carolina]
"Turtle Soup.
Take the whole of the turtle out of its shell; cut it in pieces, that it may be more easily scalded. Throw these pieces, with the fins, into the pot, and when scalded, take off the coarse skin of the fins and lay them aside to make another dish. The thick skin of the stomach must also be take off; under it lies the fat, or what is termed the citron. Thus prepared, it is ready for making the soup. Take a leg of beef, and boil it to a gravy, cut up the turtle in small pieces, throw them into the pot with the beef, and add as much water as will cover the whole about two inches. Let it boil slowly for about three hours. The seasoning and the citron should be put in when the soup is half done. To two quarts and a half of soup (which will fill a large tureen,) add half an ounce of mace, a desert-spoonful of allspice, a tea-spoonful of cloves, and salt and pepper, black and cayanne, to your taste. Tie up a bunch of parsley, thyme, and onions, and throw them into the soup while boiling; when nearly done, thicken with two table-spoonfuls of flour. To give it a good color, take about a table-spoonful of brown sugar and burn it; when sufficiently burnt, add a wine-glass of water. Of this coloring, put about two table-spoonfuls in the soup, and just before serving, throw in half a pint of Madeira wine."
---The Carolina Housewife, Sarah Rutledge, originally published in 1847 [University of South Carolina Press:Columbia SC] 1979 (p. 39-40)