To Stew Terrapins (turtles)
Plunge them in boiling water till they are dead. Take them out, pull off the outer skins and toenails, and wash in warm water. Then boil with a teaspoon of salt for each middling-sized terrapin till you can pinch the flesh off the bone of the leg. Turn them out of the shell into a dish, remove the sand bags and gall, and add the yolks of three eggs. Cut up your meat and season high with equal parts of black and cayenne pepper and salt. Put all in a sauce pan with the liquor they have given out in cutting up but not a drop of water. Add a quarter pound of butter with a gill of Madiera to every two terrapins. Simmer gently till tender, closely covered. Thicken with flour and serve hot.
Wikipedia entry on terrapins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamondback_terrapin
Source: Field and Fireside, April 5, 1862 as found in John Hammond Moore, ed., The Confederate Housewife (Columbia, SC: Summerhouse Press, 1997).
