American Cookery

page 21

To Dress a Turtle.
Fill a boiler or kettle, with a quantity of water sufficient to scald the
callapach and Callapee, the fins and about 9 o'clock hang up your Turtle by
the hind fins, cut off the head and save the blood, take a sharp pointed knife
and seperate the callapach from the callapee, or the back from the belly part,
down to the shoulders, so as to come to the entrails which take out, and clean
them, as you would those of any other animal, and throw them into a tub of clean
water, taking great care not to break the gall, but to cut it off from the liver
and throw it away, then seperate each distinctly and put the guts in another
vessel, open them with a small pen-knife end to end, wash them clean, and draw
them through a woolen cloth, in warm water, to clear away the slime and then put
them in clean cold water till they are used with the other parts of the
entrails, which must be cut up small to be mixed in the baking dishes with the
meat; this done, separate the back and belly pieces, entirely cutting away the
fore fins by the upper joint, which scald; peal off the loose skin and cut them
into small pieces, laying them by themselves, either in another vessel, or on
the table, ready to be seasoned; then cut off the meat from the belly part, and
clean the back from the lungs, kidneys and that meat cut into pieces as
small as a walnut, laying it likewise by itself; after this you are to scald the
back and belly pieces, pulling off the shell from the back, and the yellow skin
from the belly, when all will be white and clean, and with the kitchen cleaver
cut those up likewise into pieces about the bigness or breadth of a card; put
those pieces into clean cold water, wash them and place them in a heap on the
table, so that each part may lay by itself; the meat being thus prepared and
laid seperate for seasoning; mix two thirds part of salt or rather more, and one
third part of cayenne pepper, black pepper, and a nutmeg, and

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