Meats and Small Game: The Foxfire Americana Library (4)

by Edited by Foxfire Students

  You get you a chicken gizzard or fat meat for bait. You need to use what they call carpenter’s twine, and you want to use a tough hook. When you buy your hook and your line, you’ll have to make allowance for where the line goes through your hook, ’cause if you don’t, you’re going to get your twine bigger than your hook eye. Now tie your line in a fisherman’s knot on the end of the twine, and it ain’t going to slip. You run it back through your hook eyes, and then you pull it, give it a yank, and it ain’t going to go nowhere. The turtle will be there when you get there.

  Now you want to tie your line to something that gives, like a limb, ’cause when you hang a monster, he’s going to yank real hard; and if you tie it to a tree, he’s going to break your line. If he is around a limb that gives, he’ll be there when you get there, unless he chews the line in two or somebody cuts him loose.

  I’ll tell you, what I generally do is set out my bait about one o’clock in the afternoon. You can’t do this at night unless you ain’t got nothin’ to do but loaf. It’s best to check them every three hours ’cause he might accident’ly break that line if he’s a pretty good turtle. I’ve been settin’ mine about one o’clock, but most any time will do.

  I’ll tell you, another way you can catch them is to get you some milk jugs and tie a line two and one-half to three feet long on the milk jug and bait it with chicken gizzards or fat meat and throw it out in the pond. If he hangs himself, nine times out of ten, he’s going to go to the banks. You don’t have to go out in a boat and get him. He’ll hunt him a brush pile. He thinks he is getting away. They’re funny creatures.

  I’ll tell you, in catchin’ a turtle, it’s the art of outsmarting it—just like killin’ a crow. If you kill a crow, you say, “Well, I outsmarted him!” It makes you kind of mad, though, when you go to your hooks and find half of your bait gone and your line twisted up around another bush.

  ILLUSTRATION 27 Patrick Marcellino, Ken Crumley, and Lindsey Moore discuss cooking turtles.

  The biggest one I caught was at Toccoa Falls [Georgia]. I guess he weighed twenty pounds. Me and him couldn’t agree at all. I tried to get the deputy sheriff to give me his gun to shoot it, but there was too many people around there and he wouldn’t do it. I dragged him over the highway and got me a pair of pliers and a knife and just cut his head off!

  You’d better believe turtles can move fast. When they snap, they snap. They don’t fool around about it. You get one mad, and he’s really mad. The best thing to do when you get one is shoot him right in the top of the head.

  If you do that, then he won’t snap you! If you try to handle that rascal—for instance, if he’s hung on a hook and you pull that hook out—he’s liable to jerk that string out of your hand and snap you. So if you have a pistol or a rifle, just shoot that rascal right quick like so he can’t snap you.

  If a snappin’ turtle bites you, all I know for you to do is to take something and pry its mouth loose. You don’t want to pull it, or he’ll bring a hunk out of you. You will just have to get a screwdriver or board or something and pry his jaw loose.

  You can cut one’s head off and hang him up, and in the morning that turtle will still be movin’. I’ve taken the heart out and laid it on the table, and its heart will still be beating. Those things are hard to kill. The old saying is they’ll hold you till it thunders. [If one grabbed me,] I’d pray for rain right quick, or get somebody to do a rain dance!

  I have heard that there was seven different types of meat in a turtle. According to the Bible and the old people, there’s meat for every day of the week. Now which one it is, I couldn’t tell you. I never did pay attention to that. I just ate it!

  [How long I cook it] all depends on how big it is. If it’s a young one, I’d fry it; and, if it’s a large one, I’d put it in stew. The reason for that is the larger ones are tougher, and the more you boil it, the better it is to eat. If you take a turtle that weighs fifteen pounds, you’d want to boil him and put him in a stew. I don’t have any special recipes. I just fix it like a regular stew. Now some people might have some special recipes, but I don’t. I’d say to boil a big one at least eight hours. Don’t get the water boiling hot—just slowly turning. Every once in a while, take your spoon and stir him up or shake him or whatever.

  Now, I’ll tell you something else that’s a good idea: When you boil it, chip up an onion and sprinkle it in there. The reason for that is sometimes they don’t smell too good cooking, and the onion will help.

  Lillie Lovell: Turtles don’t get too big around here now. They get up a pretty good size, though. Carlos brought one in that was about as big as the top of that stool. Now, he was a huge ’un! I had a big dishpan, and we couldn’t put it down in the dishpan. He caught him out of the pond. We caught sixteen out of that pond once—and four of them were big—but none of them were as big as that huge one. But I don’t know if them smaller-sized ones ain’t better than the large ones are.

  You can gig turtles, but we never did. I think you gig them in the back. I never did gig one, but now they’ve been gigged. Them shells are hard, though. [Instead of trying to go through his shell,] you’d be better off to catch him with his old head out. Then you have to be sharp. I don’t think I could do that!

  My husband always got ’em by the tail. He’d just catch ’em! Keep their head away from you, though, ’cause they’ll bite you, and they are mean, too.

  And we’ve caught ’em with a hook. But now we had mud turtle hooks—great big ’uns. I ain’t seen one of them in a long time. You can use a regular fishhook, but you have to be awfully careful ’cause they’ll get loose from that now! They’ll snap it so quick you’ll [lose them]. I guess they still have mud turtle hooks in fishing stores, but I ain’t seen none since Daddy used them.

  Now, for bait, put a piece of fish or chicken on the hook and set your hook out in a pond where it won’t float up and get in trash or anything. You’ll more than likely catch one!

  Now Virge, my husband, always, when he was livin’, I’d go with him, and he’d catch a chicken out of the chickenhouse—just a small little ol’ chicken—chop it in two, and put half on each hook good. Go back the next mornin’, and he had two mud turtles. Put the chicken on the hook and throw it right over in the pond and go back the next mornin’; that mud turtle will just pooch down in the mud, and there you’ll get him! But you better be careful when you go to land him, now, ’cause he could get loose. Be very easy.

  Now I like to cook these turtles when I clean them, unless I’m going to cut them up and freeze them like you would chicken or any other meat. When I cook them, I put them on and cook them till they’re tender in salt and water. If you want to, you can put a little pod of pepper in. It won’t hurt them a bit—gives that whang to them that they ought to have. Now if you boil the meat too long, it’ll just come all to pieces, and I don’t like it that way. I like to still have the pieces whole where you can pick them up just like a piece of chicken. It’s pretty meat, and I don’t want it to come off the bone if I can keep it on.

  The boiling part doesn’t take too long. It depends on the size of the turtle. One great big one I cooked took me nearly four hours, but they usually don’t take that long. I always take my fork and test it and see if it’s tender enough. When it is, I take those pieces out and fry them in a frying pan—brown them up nice.

  Lots of times I’ve found thirty or forty eggs in them. You know the size of a partridge [grouse or pheasant] egg, don’t you? Like that size. The last one I cooked had thirty-five or forty in it. I took them out and put them in a bowl in there, and they filled a pretty good-sized bowl up! I don’t care for the eggs too much, though. You can’t hardly cook them. They’re a kind of rubber, kind of a watery thing! They don’t taste right to me. But, now, they say they make the best cakes there are, but I ain’t done that now.

  You’ll get enough meat off an average-sized one to feed a good family. I’ve had them about the size of a dinner plate, and we’ll have turtle for supper and two pieces left
over to give to the cat! There’s plenty of meat in them. I guess two pounds and a half in one with any size to it. Lots of times you can’t eat a whole hind leg by yourself. There’s plenty of eating in it, and it’s good meat, too!

  And I’ve always heard there’s seven or eight different flavors of meat in them, and I’ve read that, too. But now, I don’t know. They say the neck part is [like a] chicken breast. And they’ve got beef flavor in them—I hear that now. I don’t know whether they’ve got hog meat. I don’t think they have. But I just love them better than any kind of meat. And we’ve cooked them large and small.

  Once we had a man that worked here, and we had a pipe—almost like a stovepipe—that carried water from the pond to the chickenhouse. Well, the water kept bein’ cut off, and he’d come to the house and say, “I can’t get nothin’ out. The water’s gone, and them chickens is starvin’ to death!”

  “That head’ll bite you, now, after you’ve got it off. Yes, sir, the reflexes keeping goin’.”

  So Virge said, “They’s somethin’ in the pipe up there.” So they went up there and worked and piddled and couldn’t do nothin’ with it. So Virge just went in the pond and got down in there, and it was a mud turtle about the size of a dinner plate had stopped the hole up!

  We had some men come here about fourteen years ago, and they drove up out there in the yard and said would we mind them a-goin’ turtle huntin’ in our creek? And I was at the door. I said no. And then Virge come walkin’ to the door, and I said, “Virge, this man wants to go down and see if they can catch some turtles.”

  Virge said, “Go ’head, but I don’t believe you’ll catch any there.”

  They went down the creek, and they come back with six! I don’t know how they did it! The man said, “They’re under the bank. We know where they’re at.” They’d reach in under there with their bare hands. This man had nothin’ but his hand! I wouldn’ta put my hand down under there! There coulda been anything under there! But they come back with ’em. Said they caught six back up at the upper end of my field.

  ILLUSTRATION 28 Foxfire student Keith Head holding the mud turtle by the tail

  COOKING THE TURTLE

  Mrs. Lovell: You always want to hold that live turtle away from your body. They can bite you bad! That’s how come we cut the head off, ’cause they’ve got strong teeth.

  First, you have to cut the head off. You have to give ’em a stick and pull their head out and get ’em on a block or something. They’ll grab a stick. Just pull the head out and pop ’em with the ax. That head’ll bite you, now, after you’ve got it off. Yes, sir, the reflexes keep goin’.

  Mr. Moore: See how cautious she’s handling this turtle? They’re very dangerous. You see how pointed his bill is? You have to take caution. Now if you can get him to hold on to that stick and pull his head out, you can cut his head off. But, nine times out of ten, he won’t hold on. If he won’t, get a long pair of pliers and pull his head out just as far as you can. When you’re cutting the head off, you want to cut it just as close to the head as you can ’cause he’s got a neck four to six inches long. There’s a lot of good meat in that neck; you don’t want to waste that.

  After you cut the head off, you want to dispose of it so the kids or you don’t get ahold of it. That head will bite you three hours after you cut it off. After you cut the head off, you want to hang the body or lean it up against something to drain all the blood out of the shell. If you do that, it will make it cleaner and better to eat. If you lie it on its back, all the blood will get mixed up in the meat.

  There are two knives I use to clean them with. You want to keep them extra sharp. For cutting in those joints and around the top, you want to use the big knife. The little knife is the one you use to cut out from under his hull ’cause he’s really stuck in that hull. I’d advise you to use this larger knife to cut the breastplate off, and cut it just as close as you possibly can. There’s a lot of good lean meat in there, and if you don’t cut it close, you’re going to pull all this meat off.

  Mrs. Lovell: As soon as it quits dripping [blood], I put it in boiling water to scald it. Have your water good and hot and just set ’em down in that water. When you scald ’em, now, they’ll move and crook their feet up and wiggle good and just knock water and go. But the hide comes off easy after you give ’em a good scalding. You can let the hot water out after you give ’em a good scalding. You can test it and see if the skin will peel. If it will, you got it ready.

  You can run hot water over them to scald ’em, too. The water there in the sink is hot enough to scald ’em. Just set ’em down in a big pan, turn the water in on ’em, and let it run a few minutes; then you can scrape that [hide]. It all comes off white and pretty. They’re easy cleaned. I don’t mind it a bit, but, law, lots of people wouldn’t clean ’em for nothin’ in the world. I guess you could keep one a day or two before you cleaned it, but I wouldn’t want to. I’d rather dress ’em when they’re first caught.

  ILLUSTRATION 29 Mrs. Lovell tries to get the mud turtle to snap at the stick so its head will protrude and be easy to cut off.

  Mr. Moore: I like to wait till the following day to dress one. I don’t have as many problems with ’im that way. If you clean it right after you kill it, its reflexes will still be so strong that it’ll try to jerk its legs back into that shell.

  Mrs. Lovell: After I scald it, I run cold water over it. That hot water draws ’em up, and then the cold water straightens ’em out. Next, I scrape ’em and get ready to start cuttin’.

  Mr. Moore: When you first start cuttin’ around the breastbone, you’ve got to turn the blade of your knife down. You have to give it a little pull to get it started. You want to keep that knife sharp as possible. Then, after you get it started, you want to turn the blade of your knife up to where you won’t cut your meat. Just keep goin’ all the way around the breastbone. Another reason for keepin’ your knife turned up is so you won’t cut the innards and ruin the meat.

  Sometimes I keep that breastbone for a souvenir. My daddy always used to put it up above his door for some meaning, but I don’t remember what it was. I generally just throw ’em away.

  ILLUSTRATION 30 Running cold water over the turtle

  ILLUSTRATION 31 Beginning to remove the breastbone

  Mr. Moore: Now she’s getting ready to go in there and take the joints [legs] out. The tail of the turtle is good meat, too. A lot of people throw that tail away ’cause it looks boogerish and mean, but it’s okay. All you’ve got to do is clip those little ridges off and put that son of a gun in the pan. It’s the best eating you have ever seen.

  In this photo, she is taking the joints out now. Those things have got joints from the claws right back up into the hull. I take it apart just like she’s doin’. Start with a small knife. Then when you get all the joints cut [the joints that attach the legs to the inside of the hull], you want to go to a knife that’s about ten inches long. That meat is really hung on to that hull, and you just can’t pull it out. You’ve got to get in there and twist and pry to get it loose from the hull, and if you use a little knife, you’ll break it.

  ILLUSTRATION 32 Cutting the joints

  Mrs. Lovell: There’s a joint in there, and if you catch it, you can get it off easy; but if you don’t catch it, you’ve got a hard lick. It’s hateful.

  After you get the breastbone off, the intestines and stuff is still in there. They should be removed before you start workin’ on that turtle. If not, you might go in there and bust a gut, and it would ruin the meat. Just reach in there and pull them out. If you’re around a spigot, just run that whole thing under there. It’s cleaner, and your hands won’t get as messy.

  Mr. Moore: Now some of your turtles is dark-meated and some is light-meated. I believe the male is light, and the female is dark. So, if you think the turtle ain’t no good ’cause his meat is dark, don’t worry. That’s just the nature of the turtle.

  Mrs. Lovell: When you get done cuttin’ it up, you have a tail and four legs an
d a neck. The only thing you want to dispose of is the innards and the head. After I get it cut up, I cut the toenails off the legs. Then I either take the skin off or not, depending. Some people don’t like it cooked with the skin on, but it don’t hurt it. It fries just as nice as chicken.

  ILLUSTRATION 33 Loosening the meat from the hull

  ILLUSTRATION 34 Internal organs

  Mr. Moore: She cut those claws off, but if you scald it good, you can just take your fingers and pick those claws off there—just like pickin’ berries, if you want to. It’s awful easy. And there she’s pulling the hide off one piece, but you can leave it on. It won’t hurt that turtle none whatsoever.

  Mrs. Lovell: Next, I put all the pieces in cold salt water. Don’t use too much salt—just enough to draw the meat. It makes it good. They’ll move after you salt ’em. You go to puttin’ salt to ’em, and they go to movin’. Any time you catch fish or any kind of wild game that comes out of the water, if you’ll put salt on him and soak him for a few minutes, you’ll get that muddy taste out. Let it soak for a few minutes in that salt, and it’ll make the meat taste better when you get ready to eat it.

  Now I rinse it, put it in fresh water with more salt and a pod of red pepper. Then I put it all on the stove and boil it till it gets good and tender. I’ll boil this one for about two hours.

  ILLUSTRATION 35 Turtle meat

  ILLUSTRATION 36 Cutting off the toenails

  Mr. Moore: Remember that the older the turtle is, the tougher it is, and the longer you have to boil it. When I get ready to fry it, I put it in Shake ’n Bake—or just plain old flour and salt—and give him a good shakin’. When you’re fryin’ it, I usually have the pan full of grease, enough to cover it up. You probably could make something similar to chicken and dumplings out of this—you know, make a thick-like gravy. I’ve never tried that. I usually just put the turtle in a soup with tomatoes, onions—whatever comes out of the garden.