Red Snapper Soup

The Soup Lady recently had the opportunity to partake of what the waiter referred to as "the best fish soup in the world." The scene was the Drake Bros. Restaurant located in the Drake Hotel in Chicago and the soup was Bookbinder Soup.

The soup was very delicious and the experience was made even more delightful when the waiter served a mini-carafe of an excellent cream sherry along side the bowl. He floated the sherry on top of the hot soup and the first spoonful was shocking and breath-taking.  The soup itself was rich without being greasy, dense without being stew-ish and savory without being salty. Overall rating: delightful.

In fact, The Soup Lady was so taken with it, that upon return home  the interweb was quickly pressed into service to look up the recipe. And that's where it all went wrong. The waiter had called it a red snapper soup and because he said "fish soup", wouldn't you assume that it was a soup made out of red snapper? Don't be naive!

It turns out that this is  a famous creation from Bookbinder's Restaurant in Philadelphia. You can buy it in cans or you can make your own from a recipe such as this one. Is it now painfuly obvious that everyone except the Soup Lady understands that the soup I enjoyed so much was a red soup made from a snapper (turtle), not a soup made from a red snapper (fish).

Now it may seem like a fine culinary  line to you, but eating fish is something I'm used to doing. Eating combative reptilian scavengers when you are expecting to eat fish is another thing entirely.

The Soup Lady does not like to be fooled. That is why you will never find discussion about magicians here - why would I pay good money to see a show by someone  who is out to fool me? I'm afraid I must throw the Drake Bros.' waiter into this catagory now, too - a new personal catagory of mine called As Bad As A Magician.  If I ever say that you are As Bad As A Magician, cower! It is a grave insult.

It was very sneaky of him to call it Red  Snapper Soup instead of just Snapper Soup and downright dishonest to say that it was fish soup when clearly he knew it was not.  That's probably how they unload the stuff everyday - otherwise they would be stuck with a potful of it at the end of serving hours. The reason that I am so put out by this is because it is a violation of the basic implied waiter/patron agreement - if one cannot trust the integrity of one's waiter, then were does that leave one? It leaves one with egg on their face and turtle in their mouth, that's where.

Now you are on your own with this - yes, it was an exteremely tasty soup but if knew before hand what it really was, I would never have ordered it. And I certainly will not ever have it again.

Comments

[Janet]

An entire blog devoted to soup? I love it. My only complaint is that there aren't any free samples.:(

[lee]

That is disgusting. I thought that turtle soup went out in the 1900s and it was all "mock turtle" soup these days - a la Louis Carroll. So how many elephants does it take to make the elephant tomato orange soup? Just so I know for my next shop, they're a little hard to find over here.

(and as for Queen Victoria soup...)

[Mary Beth]

one word. Ewwwwww

I'd probably use more than one word when I called the place to ask if that was really true. I find it more likely that they would substitute fish for turtle than the other way around.

[shelley]

It's not that I didn't notice your post. It's that I was so stunned to find a new post here that I was wordless for a couple of days. Which, believe me, is shocking to more than just your soupness.

[shelley]

Or, you know, Your Soupness.

[Lenka]

Welcome back, O Beneficent Bringer of Soup!

I would suspect (and hope) that the Red Snapper did indeed contain true snapper; after all, that *was* the Drake Hotel. ;)

Chalk it up to another case of Red Snapper that ain't. (see link)

[Tata]

Every so distant often, I treat myself to a Bookbinder's soup. Supermarkets have small cans.

Once I worked with a man who killed his own turtles for turtle soup and the process he described was diabolical and cruel. I love steak and pork chops and fish of all kinds but I can't bring myself to sample the turtle.

Perhaps I'm just wussy?

[mark]

Bookbinder's Snapper (turtle) soup is addictive. I bought and served a can on a dare, and was really surprised at how good it was.

[Tammy]

I'm sorry to laugh, but I'm phrom Philadelphia and grew up with this soup. I never liked it until I became preganant with my second child, at which point I required a cup per day.

[Ramon]

According to this web site
http://www.recipezaar.com/75333
there is no turtle in the red snapper soup as served at the Drake in Chicago.
-ramon

[franklin]

"... yes, it was an exteremely tasty soup but if knew before hand what it really was, I would never have ordered it. And I certainly will not ever have it again."

Why ever not? If you enjoyed it, and it is not illegal, why do you refuse? Certainly you eat fish, and escargot, perhaps even frogs legs? Why do you draw a line at snapper?

Snapper soup (served with sherry) is pretty common on restaurant and diner menus here in the Philadelphia area. It frankly never occurred to me that it was a "local" dish.

[Rick]

From the Bookbinder's website:

SNAPPER SOUP: A traditional recipe with snapper turtle meat in a thick and rich seasoned tomato base, flavored with sherry wine.

No "red snaper" or fish substitute in the ingredients. And I do know the French restaurants in North Jersey paid folks fairly well for catching snapping turtles for their soups.

[naomi]

its actually red snappert they use at the drake hotel not snapper turtle whoever said it was a turtle should wear glasses cause the pieces of meat in the soup was obvioulsy fish

[Alice Edmondson]

I THINK THAT!S INTERESTING!

[mark]

Bookbinder's snapper soup is turtle, not red snapper. Tastes like beef, and very thick. You can get it at just about any grocery store in the Philadelphia area.

[Bill Walsh]

The Bookbinders snapper soup is turtle--the Drake's red-snapper soup is fish. In fact, red-snapper soup was a not uncommon menu item in old-fashioned restaurants in Washington, D.C., twenty or thirty years ago in my youth. Good stuff. And definitely fish.

[Claire]

I don't understand categorically refusing to eat something that you enjoyed based on nothing but arbitrary squeamishness. I've had that soup; it's phenomenal.