[3] According to food historian Janet Clarkson, the dish, which she describes as one of several "noteworthy soups", became a symbol for civic dinners and From 1761 to 1825 it was never absent from the London Lord Mayor's Day Banquet.

[5] Giles Rose made turtle soup as follows: "Take your tortoises and cut off their heads and feet and boyl them in fair water, and when they are almost boyl'd, put to them some white wine, some sweet herbs, and a piece of bacon, and give them a brown in the frying pan with good butter, then lay upon your bread a-steeping in good strong broth, and well-seasoned; garnish the dish with green sparrow-grass [asparagus] and lemon over it.

"[6][full citation needed] In Cookery and Domestic Economy (1862), the recipe begins as follows: "take the turtle out of the water, turn it on its back, tie its feet, cut off its head".

[8] Thus, long before that time, mock turtle soup made from calf's head was widely adopted as a more economical substitute and became popular in its own right, with the two dishes sometimes being served at the same banquet.

Similarly in the San Francisco Bay, the Pacific pond turtle was the base of a minor industry with the canned product sent to eastern markets by rail.

Whereas turtle soup was a royal delicacy in Europe, during the colonial period, colonists fed these abundant and easily captured animals to servants, slaves, and livestock.

[12] The 27th U.S. president, William Howard Taft, hired a chef at the White House for the specific purpose of preparing turtle soup.