Cooter Soup

Southern turtle soups and stews once stood at the heart of fine dining. Terrapin à la Maryland appeared first at any banquet worth its name in parts north of South Carolina, until Prohibition made its finishing splash of Madeira illegal. In South Carolina the terrapin took second place to readily obtainable cooter—originally an African American general designation for fresh water basking and sliding turtles. Biologists now identify the term with Pseudemys concinna, the River Cooter and its related species the Florida Cooter and the Suwanee Cooter. But when it comes to cooter soup, the original broader designation comes into play, and the yellow belly slider (Trachemys scripta scripta) finds its way into the pot under the name cooter too. Female cooters were traditionally preferred over males for cooking and contribute to two classic dishes: cooter soup (red or white) and cooter pie.