mock turtle
[mock a.]
1. A dish consisting of calf's head dressed with sauces and condiments so as to resemble turtle.
| 1763 H. Glasse Cookery (1767) 340 To dress a mock turtle. Take a calf's head [etc.]. 1783 J. Farley Lond. Art of Cookery (1789) i. iii. 32. 1826 Mrs. Dods Cook & Housew. Man. 225 Mock Turtle, or Calf's Head. |
2. (In full,
mock turtle soup.) A soup made (usually of calf's head) in imitation of turtle soup.
| 1783 J. Farley Lond. Art of Cookery (1789) i. xiii. 158 Mock-Turtle Soup. 1789 Mrs. Piozzi Journ. France II. 196 The cold mock turtle soups..which London pastry-cooks keep in their shops. 1826 Mrs. Dods Cook & Housew. Man. 83 Mock Turtle Soup. Procure the head of a middle-sized, well-fed cow calf [etc.]. 1833 Marryat P. Simple xxvii, As the midshipmen prophesied, there was plenty of pork—mock-turtle soup, made out of a pig's head [etc.]. 1855 Delamer Kitch. Gard. (1861) 122 Cooks say that it [i.e. Sweet basil]..is a grand secret in the composition of good mock-turtle soup. |
| fig. 1890 W. Cory Lett. & Jrnls. (1897) 553 Anglo-Catholics started vestments, and a whole lot of ‘mock turtle’. |