Turtle Soup...

Last time I was in New Orleans I went to see a band at Chickie Wah-Wah on Canal St. A few blocks away was one of my favorite restaurants in the Crescent City, Mandina's. As things go sometimes, the best laid plans and all, I did not make it over there. The next day, we were camped across one of the longest bridges in the world in Mandeville at the State Park there I was delighted to learn that there was a Mandina's near by. Maybe not as cool as the old Mandina's uptown in New Orleans that had it's origins as a grocery store making sandwiches for working class Italian immigrants in 1898 but I was still able to satisfy a Jones for their famous turtle soup. 

Don't worry, since we did not have a shot of sherry to serve on the side like they do in Mandina's, it comes out in a shot glass on the side of the plate and you dump in in the soup yourself for flavor we did not make soup out of this turtle. Cathy claims she has cleaned and cooked a turtle before although it's probably been about 40 years ago since she did such so if we had had sherry...

Not an appetizer although I did dream last night that I was fishing at the beach and someone cooked stuffed crabs that were so good that I ate shell, legs and all.     

 

The Uptown Mandina's opened as the restaurant we know today in 1932 in the same building the Mandina family opened the original grocery store and the family still runs it. There's a lot of history there to go with the food. The old days and all that. They are important, especially when eating turtle soup.