Worthmore Mock Turtle Soup 10 oz (pack of 2)

No Turtles Were Harmed To Make This Soup !! Worthmore is an old Cincinnati brand that has been around for 100 years. Unlike 95% of soups you will find on the shelf, this one is remarkably low in Sodium (for a soup) - a 1 cup serving is only 610 mg, and contains only 6 Grams of Fat. The recipe uses beef hearts as the protein source, in a finely shredded form. No water need be added to serve. The soup is a very dark brown “gumbo” consistency, with a light savory & spicy (but NOT peppery) flavor. Fresh Lemon Juice or squeezed wedge makes a nice flavor garnish. If you are on a strict low sodium diet and love soups, this one might be worth a try. Fans of “Cincinnati Chili” like Skyline or Gold Star will recognize some of the flavor components. I was very happy to find it is still available and still tastes exactly the same as I remember from the 60’s.

Something I was watching or reading recently reminded me of the wonderful mock turtle soup I had in Germany when I lived there 50 years ago. I decided to see if Amazon had mock turtle soup. I got the smallest portion I could. The first can I ate like soup, and it was mediocre. It definitely had some flavor and some shreds of beef and was rich in flavor and the thickness was not as much as NE Clam Chowder but it was not thin as broth. The soup was similar to what I had in Germany but the flavor was not as good and the German mock turtle had chunks of tasty meat.The second can I heated up and poured over French fries, and the combo was quite good. Due to price, this soup is too expensive to use it like that. Again, this deserves a solid 3 out of 5. I do not regret the purchase so sate my curiosity. If this soup was less expensive, I would get more just for pouring it over fries.

There once was a time when mock turtle soup was widely popular throughout the United States. It was served at Abraham Lincoln’s first Inauguration and it remained in White House cookbooks throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was so popular that Campbell’s made a canned variety, featured in full page magazine ads in the 1930s-50s. Of course those same ads featured printanier, mulligatawny, julienne, pepper pot and mutton soups, also no longer produced. In an interview, Andy Warhol said it had been his favorite Campbell’s soup when growing up. It disappeared in the 60s. Well, it didn’t totally disappear, as it remained a favorite in Cincinnati and is still produced there today by Worthmore.It also is popular in parts of Germany, where it’s considered an English dish.Indeed, the soup did originate in England in the eighteenth century. As the name implies, it contains no turtle meat. Instead, it is a kind of beef soup. Real turtle soup, made from green turtles, was a favored delicacy of the aristocracy but too expensive for everyone else, so the “mock” variety was created. I don’t know how the genuine article was made, though the one or two times I ever had real turtle soup it was nothing like this but rather an almost clear, delicately flavored soup. In any case, the popularity of the real turtle soup caused the turtles to become almost extinct and then everybody had to eat the mock variety.I grew up in Cincinnati, so I was familiar with the dish as a common lunch item. Back then there were two brands, Worthmore and Stegner’s but only Worthmore survives today. The company was founded in 1920 by butcher Phil Houck because of customer demand. He probably followed the original early recipes which called for using a dressed calf’s head and using organ meats. This was done to mimic the texture of turtle meat which has a slight;y chewy seafood texture. Today the soup is made with ground beef and often contains bits of hard boiled egg to mimic turtle meat.Worthmore’s contains the hard boiled egg, though in so small a quantity that some may want to add their own. Most recipes use ground up ginger snaps, though Worthmore uses cracker meal. Any ginger perhaps is listed under spices. Cider vinegar long ago replaced beer and that vinegar is used here.That said, what is the result? It’s a rather thin beef soup with a different flavor due to its spicing, with tiny bits of beef and hard boiled egg. It’s rather like a very thin, watered down version of Cincinnati Chili, a beef chili that uses aromatic spices like allspice, cinnamon and cloves along with hot ancho chili peppers. To those who have never tasted it, Cincinnati Chili can be an acquired taste, especially as it’s served over spaghetti (revealing its Greek-Thracian origins) and usually topped with cheddar cheese. Between the two, I’d prefer the chili, though the unique taste of mock turtle soup was worth having it shipped.Mock turtle soup by itself needs something to perk up its relative blandness, and it’s usually served with lemon wedges as shown on the can. You can add sherry instead or more commonly in addition to lemon. It’s an interesting departure from the usual soups, though for me it will be a once in a while thing.

I've been searching for bookbinders turtle soup, but this is the best that's on the market for now. It is expensive, but what the heck

Sorry to say I can't say anything positive about the product. The base was very watery and "meat"?the little that was found was ground much too finely. The flavor was hardly appetizing. Can't imagine the Company existed for so many years by selling this particular item.

As expected

Everyone liked it. I just ordered more.

Generally people that buy soup, eat it