Even though posting a photograph of food that resembles throw-up-slash-dog-doo is the cardinal sin of food blogging, I’m making an exception today:
Last night, our neighbor Sam “Buckmaster” Watkins ambled over and presented Jake with this plate of unidentifiable meat and asked him to guess what it was.
Jake was stumped: Chicken? Pheasant? Rabbit?
No, Sam chuckled. It’s turtle. All together now: Ewww!
Come to find out that grilled turtle is a country delicacy on par with squirrels and chipmunks.
Apparently, Sam and his wife Sandra “saw the turtle in the road and decided to capture it” — which I think is the friendly way of saying roadkill — and grilled us a big ole steaming plate of it.
Now, a little something about the eating habits of Jessie Knadler: I will pretty much sample anything once. The more exotic and weird and disgusting, the more I feel compelled to try it. It’s this compulsion that has led me to eating putrified shark in Iceland, bear sausage in Montana and dehydrated jelly fish in Israel. Though these offerings taste absolutely horrendous (although the bear sausage was pretty good), I experience a puerile pleasure eating things considered off limits to normal, that is, conventional palates. There is a certain element of warped, backward haughtiness about this habit of mine.
So.
It may not surprise you to learn that grilled turtle tastes…like chicken. Then again, doesn’t all mystery meat taste like chicken?
But I will admit I was only able to eat one bite because I discovered that turtle reminds me too much of a lizard, which is only 4 limbs from being a snake. And I hate snakes. I really, really hate them.
Jake, meanwhile, cleaned the entire plate without a second thought, smacking his lips the entire time.
(Note to self: Next time Jake raves about my cooking, check it. This is, after all, a man who delights in roadkill.)
All original content © 2012 by Jessie Knadler
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll take your word for it- I don’t think I’ll be eating turtle any time soon but nice to know it tastes like chicken
Ha ha. I forgot to mention that I had to put a lot of hot sauce on it. Everything tastes better with hot sauce, as they say.
One of our neighbors wanted to have a Louisiana night for the neighborhood (he’s a doc from West Virginia but has a connection to Cajin somehow). So we all got together . . . menu was fried catfish and some other stuff and turtle soup . . . that was my assignment . . . another neighbor (born and raised here plus many generations behind him) said he had a source for the turtle. I expected chunks of meat ready for the soup . . . NOOOO . . . it was still on the bones. I sent Alec to the barn with the mess and made him take it off the bones and get it ready . . . it was really nasty looking . . . but I had a recipe and made the stew . . . cooked it a long time . . . served it with rice and the doc said it was the best turtle soup he had ever had. I did not eat it . . . you are a better woman than I.
Turtle. It’s whats for dinner.