North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Anton Callaway <marillen@earthlink.net>]

My grandfather used to catch a snapping turtle occasionally and the meaty 
pieces were deep fried.  Despite the risk of cliche, it really did taste like 
fried chicken.  It was quite good.  I imagine the water quality would have a 
lot to do with the flavor.  He lived in the Appalachian foothills and the 
water was pretty clear and cool.  

Anton
Zone 8, NC

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
>Sent: Nov 15, 2008 5:03 PM
>To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>, 
>fuwafuwausagi@muchomail.com
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Jim - snapper
>
>I had an uncle who regularly ate snapping turtles he caught on his 
>farm.  I don't know how he prepared them, but he liked them enough to 
>build a huge compost pile for them every year.  They lay their eggs in 
>the compost and let the heat of decomposition do the incubating.  His 
>compost piles always had a good number of turtle nests in them.    He 
>set fishing lines in the small stream that ran through a marsh on his 
>property to catch the turtles.
>-Lon Rombough
>NEW grape pruning video: http://www.bunchgrapes.com/dvd.html
>Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at 
>http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association 
>"Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
>For all other things grape,   http://www.vitisearch.com
>A video about The Grape Grower : 
>http://cookingupastory.com/index.php/2008/04/18/the-grape-grower/
>On Nov 15, 2008, at 1:54 PM, fuwa fuwa usagi wrote:
>
>Jim wrote:
>
>I have had a chance to eat snapping turtle as well.  I was really not 
>impressed and would only consider it during times of survival.  Was 
>there a particular way in which you prepared and cooked it?
>
>My reply:
>
>Most of my unusual meals have been as a result of trapping the wrong 
>animal and living on a budget while in college or unemployed or when 
>backpacking for many months at a time (almost all back country 
>back-packers live off the land.  It is basically impossible to pack in 
>enough food at the caloric burn rate to maintain yourself if you are 
>venturing out for a several months).
>
>I cooked the snapper in its own shell after minimal processing, and 
>found the meat excellent.  But then consider I have eaten crickets, 
>spiders, grass hoppers, worms, larvae etc.
>
>When I was in New Orleans spending a few wild weeks with some highly 
>educated "bums", we had more than one meal of snapper.  One was a soup, 
>and it was excellent.  I did not prepare it, but gosh it was good.
>
>I also made snapper kabobs on  a stick, with a spicy bbq rub, along 
>with alligator, and  crawdads...excellent.   The snapper was marinated 
>with a dry rub, and the gator and shrimp had a wet rub.  This is my 
>basic rub recipe:
>
>     * 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
>     * 1 tablespoon ground white pepper
>     * 1 tablespoon sugar
>     * 2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
>     * 2 tablespoon chili powder
>     * 1 tablespoon ground cumin
>     * 1 tablespoon garlic powder
>     * 1 tablespoon brown sugar
>     * 1 tablespoon ground oregano
>     * 4 tablespoon paprika
>     * 1 teaspoon dry mustard
>     * 1 tablespoon celery salt
>
>The wet rub is:
>
>brown 3 cloves garlic in 1 t butter - finely chop
>* 1/2 cup caramelized sweet onion finely chopped
>* 1 t oregano
>* 2 t paprika
>* 1 t brown sugar
>* 1/8 cayenne peeper
>* 1/4 ground black pepper
>* 1 t chili powder
>
>add enough water to make it a little thinner than paste
>
>I marinate the shrimp and alligator for 3-4 hours and the snapper 
>overnight
>