The Vintage Soup President Taft Loved To Eat Has Basically Disappeared In The US

It was once a delicacy common in fine-dining establishments, but you'd be hard-pressed to find terrapin soup in a restaurant today — or even someone familiar with the term. Terrapin soup is made from the meat of various types of turtles, most notably the diamondback terrapin. This old-school soup was a culinary sensation from the mid-19th century to the 1920s. Terrapin soup had a faithful fan in the 27th President of the United States, William Howard Taft.

This bygone soup was one of many weird foods presidents requested in the White House, and Taft loved it. President Taft took terrapin soup so seriously, a personal turtle soup chef accompanied him in the White House. During state dinners, the first lady paid cooks an extra $5 to prepare terrapin soup. The recipe favored by the Tafts included four pounds of veal knuckle. When Taft took office in 1909, turtle soup was well-established in high society, so serving it at important political get-togethers was expected.

Why was terrapin soup so popular? Turtle meat, often described as having a sweet taste, was once abundant in the United States. Initially, it was far from a luxury item. Native Americans were eating turtle meat long before settlers arrived. After colonization, the meat was thought of as cheap and often used to feed enslaved African Americans and Confederate soldiers. How turtle meat transformed into an upper-class favorite is lost to time, but by the mid-1800s, renowned New York City restaurant Delmonico's counted turtle soup among its specialties.

The real reason no one eats turtle soup anymore boils down to the overharvesting of turtles throughout the United States. Popular meat sources, like the green sea turtle and the diamondback terrapin, became rare in the wild. This led to an influx of turtle farms, a practice that proved to be too costly and time-consuming to work on a large scale.

Additionally, Prohibition played a small role in turtle soup's fledgling popularity. Alcohol-based broths and sauces suffered when booze became illegal in the United States during the 1920s. Sherry was a common ingredient in turtle soup. With the dish already on the decline due to diminishing turtle populations, the sudden absence of alcohol only exacerbated its downfall.

The impacts of turtle soup's former popularity are still felt today. The green sea turtle is classified as endangered, and terrapins are considered vulnerable. Hunting green sea turtles and diamondback terrapin is now illegal. While Taft's particular brand of turtle soup isn't around anymore, you can still sample turtle soup in some parts of the country. In New Orleans, turtle remains a popular part of many dishes. The meat used is typically harvested from snapping turtles, rather than the species that fueled the original turtle soup craze.