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Turtle soup

How much trouble is cleaning a turtle?

I got it in my head that I was going to catch one and cook it once after throwing several decent ones back, but then I never caught another one that was kitchen-worthy. Haven't attempted it again in over a decade.

I assume both snappers and leatherbacks would be good for this, right?
 
Plus, totally not worth it. I will be selective about the type of water that I take one from, but if I have to make one a pet for a week to make it desirable to eat, then it's not really desirable to eat.

Imagine if people started saying "deer taste great if you keep them in a pen with a bag of oats hung around their neck for a week before you shoot them". Same thing, in my opinion.
 
Poser said:
Crosshairy said:
How much trouble is cleaning a turtle?

I got it in my head that I was going to catch one and cook it once after throwing several decent ones back, but then I never caught another one that was kitchen-worthy. Haven't attempted it again in over a decade.

I assume both snappers and leatherbacks would be good for this, right?
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supposedly, the key to great turtle is to keep them alive in a kitty pool, flushing them with fresh water daily for about a week. However, that practice is not legal in TN.
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Is that because of the Pet law? Could the purging process be looked at as part of the meat preparation process? Unless it could be proven that you kept it for an extended period of time I don't the State could prove you intended to keep it as a pet.
 
Alligator snappers are protected in some states, but TN is not one of them last i heard. Common snapping turtles are more frequently caught everywhere I've been. I'm pretty sure leatherbacks are still legal here, too.
 
Crosshairy said:
Plus, totally not worth it. I will be selective about the type of water that I take one from, but if I have to make one a pet for a week to make it desirable to eat, then it's not really desirable to eat.

Imagine if people started saying "deer taste great if you keep them in a pen with a bag of oats hung around their neck for a week before you shoot them". Same thing, in my opinion.
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Yeah, but deer don't taste like swampy sewer water either :D
 
TAFKAP said:
Crosshairy said:
Plus, totally not worth it. I will be selective about the type of water that I take one from, but if I have to make one a pet for a week to make it desirable to eat, then it's not really desirable to eat.

Imagine if people started saying "deer taste great if you keep them in a pen with a bag of oats hung around their neck for a week before you shoot them". Same thing, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but deer don't taste like swampy sewer water either :D
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Agreed, but my point is that, if they really taste like that, then they aren't "really" palatable. Basically, if you have to subject the animal to an unnatural environment to make it edible, then it's not really edible.

I think that I would focus my turtle-catching efforts on cleaner streams, like trout rivers in Arkansas. Obviously, the colder water slows their growth cycle, but I bet you could eat those straight out of the water without all the flushing business.

I saw an alligator snapping turtle that probably hit the 150-lb mark on the Spring River about 8 years ago. So there's been one of them in there... :)
 
I'm thinking as long as you don't have "Donatello" engraved on a board above its pool and a couple of play toys in there you would be OK purging for a week.

If I had a desire to cook one I wouldn't think twice about purging it.
 
Some of the best meat I've ever eaten. If everyone had it prepared right turtles would probably be on the protected list. I try to stay away from the stained muddy waters. They bury up in mud constantly and you do have to wash em out. I catch bigger and cleaner turtles in clear 3ft of water and don't have to worry about the mud. I spray them off before I cut their heads off tho. Somebody asked about the taste of soft shelled and someone told me the other day that soft shelled are better tasting than hard shelled but I haven't tried them.
 

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