Turtle Soup

Look at these Cuties!!

This weekend I got to attend my very first turtle soup party with my Gessner family. We were celebrating my Father-in-law's 60th birthday with all of our extended family. From what I can gather, this turtle soup business is a Southern Indiana specialty. In fact, the parish in Matthew's hometown holds a festival each year where they cook thousands of gallons of this soup. People come from all over to buy the stuff.

Eli and Daddy stir the soup



Needless to say, I was pretty excited about my first experience with turtle soup! The whole process starts early in the morning, (Actually it begins the day before when they grind and cook the meat and prepare the ingredients). The morning of, they bring out this gigantic outdoor kettle and start cooking the broth and some of the vegetables. Someone is constantly stirring the soup with a huge wooden paddle. Everyone takes turns stirring and lots of people add different ingredients to the soup at various points throughout the day. The whole process takes around 6-7 hours to complete.
Owen adds tomato juice

The soup itself is very good. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was delicious nonetheless. I think that I was expecting a very unusual, very unique concoction that would taste very "turtely". I don't know what turtle tastes like, but I figured that it would be distinct. In the end, it reminded me of a cross between vegetable soup and chili.








We had lots of other fun activities throughout the day as well. We played corn hole, ladder golf, painted pumpkins, took a hayride, and most importantly, we all got to spend time together as a family. It was truly a wonderful day!












Like I said last month, this fall is extremely busy for us, but we feel very blessed to be able to spend so much time with our families! We can't wait to see everyone again next weekend for Mr. Eli's 1st birthday party!!