47. WEIRD FOOD: Cuffy Cockroach’s Sea Turtle Soup

People began eating turtle soup in the 1700s, and they kept eating it through the early 1900s. Companies like Campbell’s and Heinz made canned turtle soup (and something called mock turtle soup). And it wasn’t just available. It was a real culinary obsession. In the early days, there would be these big, elaborate parties, called Turtle Frolics, where people would get together to enjoy it. Including a notable Turtle Frolic in Newport, prepared and served by a talented chef named Cuffy Cockroach. Episode Source Material: Reminiscences of Newport - George Champlin Mason - Google Books 1884 A Newport Rhode Island Turtle Feast, 1767 – AfroculinariaTurtle Soup: From Class to Mass to Aghast - JSTOR DailyThe Turtles of Philadelphia's Culinary PastEarly Recollections of Newport, R.I. From the Year 1793 to 1811 | George Gibbs ChanningOne of New York's Queer Institutions | New York TimesFoodways to Freedom: African Heritage Entrepreneurs in 18th- and 19th-Century Rhode Island – The Rhode Island Historical SocietyAfrican Americans in Rhode Island Who Used Food to Achieve Independence - Online Review of Rhode Island HistoryEncyclopedia of African American BusinessRhode Island History | Volume 73Black Southern Caterers: A History of Enterprise and Culinary Good TasteThe History of Catering in the United States | by KC Rippy | Made From Scratch Fine Catering | MediumA Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in AmericaDark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode IslandThe Negro in Rhode Island: His Past, Present, and FutureSeparate and Sometimes Equal: African Burials in Colonial NewportNewport's Turtle Party Slows Hectic Yule Pace - Los Angeles Times1776 Season 1 Episode 4Colonial Dames and Good Wives | Alice Morse Earle | 189550 Years of Christmas in NewportAn Archaeology of Manners: The Polite World of the Merchant Elite of Colonial Massachusetts | Lorinda B. R. GoodwinWhat Ever Happened to Turtle Soup?Turtle soup - WikipediaWhy Don't People Eat Turtle Soup Anymore?The End of Turtle Soup | History TodayOur Taste For Turtle Soup Nearly Wiped Out Terrapins. Then Prohibition Saved Them : The Salt : NPRA ban on trapping the diamondback terrapin passes after advocates stick their necks out – Baltimore SunHow America Fell Into—and Out of—Love With Mock Turtle Soup.From Delicacy to Decline: A Tale of the Diamond-Backed Terrapin | Virginia DWRHoboken Turtle Club | New York TimesJournal of A Residence in America | Frances Anne ButlerPrimer 0013: So Rich and So Green: The History of Turtle Soup