Having mock turtle soup for lunch. When I was young (seems centuries ago but actually 75+) we frequently had mock turtle soup, made by Heinz and some other tinned soups makers; I also recall a powdered version. It tasted like oxtail or beef soup, not surprising as the principal ingredient was calf's head. In the mid-nineteenth century mock turtle soup was widespread enough that Lewis Caroll invented a Mock Turtle character in Alice in Wonderland. Real turtle soup was very expensive as the green turtle was already reduced in numbers as a result of the large quantity of turtle soup consumed from about 1750 onwards. It must be around 50 years since Heinz stopped producing mock turtle. Their beef soup was an adequate substitute till that went out of production during the mad cow disease scare nearly 40 years ago. An American company called Worthmore, based in Cincinnati, still produce tinned mock turtle soup, and we obtained some a few years back; today we opened our last tin. Theirs contains rather too much tomato to match genuine i.e. Heinz mock turtle soup. End of a era! Of course we could try making it ourselves. There are several online recipes, plus a very old Mrs. Beeton that we have, and probably we could obtain a calf's head somewhere, but the quantity produced would be excessive, apart from not really wanting to have to do all the necessary things with the head.
