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Post by Toby Benoit on Mar 9, 2008 19:06:54 GMT 12.75
Ya'll ever eat any cooter? (soft shelled river turtle to all ya'll Yankees that don't know any better) I love it! I used to place out set hooks in all the ponds around the farms in my area growing up and kept the cooter population under control for all of the farmers. Especially the guy that owned the tropical fish farm behind our twenty acres; they were a regular blight to him, so he always welcome me to set out lines for them. Well, I hadn't bothered with cooters in a long time until Chicken called me up all excited the other day telling me to sharpen my knife on accounta she just caught a big old cooter and she needed me to clean it. She was driving back from the fair with our brother Dusty, when she spotted that big rascal crossing the road between to big cypress ponds and made him stop the car while she chased it down. She got caught up to it and loaded it in the back of Dusty's truck, but it kept jumping out, so she borrowed his pistol and put a .25cal. through it's head and tamed it pretty good. Dusty ain't much on cleaning cooters, but loves to eat them, so who gets elected to do the cleaning? Me! I figure I've cleaned a few hundred in my day, so what's one more right? Turned out to be a monster of a cooter and I was mighty glad dad volunteered to give me a hand with it. That big rascal putout enough meat to feed all ten of us the next day for Granny's eighty-sixth b-day party. She timed it just right didn't she? Granny was tickled to death over that pile of fried cooter. Just thought I'd tell ya a little about what the Chicken's been up to. Goofy kid!
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Post by Lt Colonel Bruce Reynolds on Mar 10, 2008 1:31:29 GMT 12.75
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Post by RogueWarrior1957 on Mar 10, 2008 5:35:39 GMT 12.75
I haven't had turtle since I was a kid...like Major Reynolds, my bunch usually called them "snappers." The word "cooter" was synonymous with "Bubba" and was very likely to be some good-ol-boy's nickname as in, "He's drunk as Cooter Jones!" I wore the nickname "Cooter" for a while because of my tinkering with cars (from the character on Dukes of Hazard). Dad used to get a big one like that every so often in a while when it crossed the road in front of him. Since he was with the MS Hwy Patrol, it was nothing unusual for him to bring one home alive in the trunk of the patrol car. Yep...we wuz rednecks! He'd clean it and cut it up, and Mom would cook it. That woman could make anything taste mighty fine! Got me drooling just remembering back. -Rogue-
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Post by Snake Eyes on Mar 10, 2008 22:17:23 GMT 12.75
Yep,given the choice of any kind of soup it would be turtle soup.Man I love that stuff. snake-eyes
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Post by Toby Benoit on May 13, 2008 16:49:21 GMT 12.75
We hit the stock pond out in a pasture I lease in Ocala and lined the banks with cane poles. by the endof the day, we done caught over sixty keeper brem, but also three hefty cooters.
Oh man, them rascals was so fat and meaty, we got a mess for the table with just one of them. Gonna fry some up tomorrow. We brought them home and Granny's eyes just glittered; that Cracker gal surely loves fried cooters! ;D
I figure one ought to be enough for a meal, so that boy'll be rolled in seasoned flour and tossed into a skillet with a little grease. Once it's good and brown, we'll set it aside and make a gravy, adding corn starch, diced sweet onions, and a little salt and pepper, and some water. Then the meat goes back in and it sets on low under a closed lid for another bit longer while the white rice is cooking, the biscuits are browning, and the sweet tea is brewing. ;D ;D ;D
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Post by Snake Eyes on May 13, 2008 23:18:31 GMT 12.75
Toby, Now that sounds good! snake-eyes
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Post by Paws on May 14, 2008 1:19:09 GMT 12.75
I've never tried it fried Toby how do you do it? You know what? Old sleatherback snapper might make a great "secret ingredient" for Iron Chef America! Somebody have my secretary give them a call!
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Post by Toby Benoit on May 14, 2008 13:14:38 GMT 12.75
"I've never tried it fried Toby how do you do it?" ;D By frying it, duh! ;D Sorry Paws, I couldn't resist. I just finished of a couple of pieces and it was some kinda good! Had it fried with gravy over rice, some fresh biscuits, and had some colards leftover from the other night and it wasreally good. Only drawback was, we runned outta tea bags and I had to settle for a rootbeer. ;D
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Post by chickenbenoit on Jun 16, 2008 16:37:52 GMT 12.75
OMG!!! I can't believe he put that picture in here. My hair was all a mess and I had just changed into my house clothes. I'm going to get him for that one!
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Post by Paws on Jun 16, 2008 23:07:41 GMT 12.75
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Post by Mars on Jun 17, 2008 1:45:06 GMT 12.75
I had to do some research before answering.
We have river cooters around here and that ain't it. Ours are related to the box turtle.
We also have soft shelled turtles that is what we call in the picture.
We have 2 kinds of snapper and it ain't them as well.
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frodo
Fire Builder
Squeerel Season
Posts: 46
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Post by frodo on Nov 18, 2008 10:28:21 GMT 12.75
down south way,,we don;t call a turtle a cooter and i aint gonna say no more
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