Turtle Soup Ingredients Slowly Crawl into Ristorante
What to do when five-dozen, cute, flippering, endangered little turtles show up in your restaurant? Soup?
About 60 baby sea turtles wandered into a beachside restaurant in the southern Italian region of Calabria….
The turtles, which were hatched on a nearby beach, were on their way to the sea when the artificial lights distracted them, Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported. At first diners in the restaurant were startled. Then they called coastal authorities, who notified Colucci. WWF collected them and released them into the sea.
Fortunately, turtle soup is not a Calabrian specialty.
Ah. Well, that’s too bad.
Especially since it doesn’t seem it would be too difficult to turn the classic, Creole version into something Italians could call their own. (Substitute Marsala for Worcestershire, basil for marjoram, etc.) Serve it with an Italian red. Voila! (Er, ecco!)
But lest anyone think that turtle soup has never occurred to the Italians–or some non-Italians living in Italy–look no further than Cyrus and Salvator in The Family Robinson of Italy, a 1919 novel I believe to be a Swiss Family Robinson knock-off.
More on that here. Bonus, unrelated two-headed turtle theft here. Bonus, unrelated four-eyed turtle birth here. Bonus, unrelated giant turtle sighting here. Bonus, unrelated GPS-enhanced, pot-detecting turtle named Jimmy (seriously) here.
