Tag Archives: turtle soup

Why have Americans stopped eating turtle?

America has a food diversity problem. Chicken, pork, and beef account for many of the animal proteins found on our dinner table—the product of decades of agricultural industrialization—and this has left us with cheaper but more limited options at the butcher’s counter. Once a year we all sit down to eat turkey, but when was the last time you had snipe, mutton, or rabbit? Perhaps the mightiest protein to fall out of favor, though, is turtle. From the earliest colonial days, Americans were smitten with this four-legged reptile, and turtle soup—its most common preparation—was a restaurant norm into the 1970s and ’80s, a dish exuding luxury status. But today, turtle has almost completely disappeared from our diet. What happened? >click to read<18:01