Walter M. Miller Jr.’s Gopher Tortoise Stew

Gopher Stew

A book of science fiction recipes should contain a few formulae for things to be cooked in a tin can in the forest after World War III. In the southeast, one such recipe might read simply: Catch, kill, and dress one 10-12 inch gopher, and boil meat until tender, adding any available herbs such as wild garlic and sabal palmetto hearts. The “gopher” of the recipe is not a rodent but a burrowing land tortoise, Gopherus polyphemus, common in this region and long a part of that swampland cuisine lately called “soul food.” In the summer and early fall, gophers are seen migrating across roads and through sandy clearings; when you approach, the animal’s only defense is to pull himself inside his shell and batten down the hatches. Because of the shell, a slow metabolism, and a subterranean abode, the gopher should have a better resistance to radiation than most hard-to-catch game. In the winter, you will find them underground, but dig with caution; the gopher sometimes shares his bole with a south-
eastern diamondback.

Calculate the position of the retracted head and kill either by putting a bullet through the shell just behind this point, or by breaking through the shell with hammer, hatchet, or pointed stone, and inserting a sharp knife to sever the neck. Chop all around the edges of the bottom shell plate, completely severing it from the top shell, insert a machete or long stiff butcher knife between the plate and the belly and slice the plate free. Dump the entrails, not bothering to look into the matter of reptilian giblets unless you’re really starving. By now you are feeling somewhat guilty because the headless beast keeps thrashing and waving its paws as it tries to crawl away: it’s not a mammal, so forget it. Reptilian meat is very persistent. Grasp the paws with a pair of pliers and stretch them out (against their will) while you cut around behind them and free the meat from the shell. A large gopher should yield about a quart of meat, including bone. Scrub the feet thoroughly, but do not attempt to skin or declaw, part of the backwoods charm of this dish is the sight of scaly reptilian feet floating with the onions and carrots in the tomatoey goop. Treat the meat with an ordinary papayin-based tenderizer, liquid or powder, and freeze it until you find another tortoise if one is not enough. (One does not ordinarily hunt the creatures, but encounters then while fishing, hunting, or walking in the woods.) Other types of turtle nay be substituted for gopher.

1 quart tortoise meat chunks
3-4 slices bacon
1. 1b. small peeled onions
4-5 carrots, sliced
4-5 small potatoes, if desired
8-9 pods of okra, sliced
3 large, red, ripe bell peppers (or large jar pimentos)
6 hot red peppers (meat only, discard seeds)
3 cloves garlic
1 small can tomato sauce
half glass of sherry, two bay leaves, several sprigs (or a teaspoon of dry) thyme, oregano, rosemary, salt and pepper

Fry out the bacon, then brown the gopher meat, trying not to let it jump out of the pan if recently killed (it’s less active if frozen). Mince the hot pepper meat, the garlic, one of the onions, and a small carrot, and add to the browning meat, along with the herbs. Add the tomato sauce and a little water, cover lightly, und Sumer until the meat is nearly tender. Add the sherry, herbs, and vegetables; cook until done. Okra is mucilaginous and has some thickening effect, but if there is too much liquid, thicken with a little brown roux or  preferably, with powdered sassafras leaves (or gumbo fillet).

Note: the fire in hot peppers is mostly in the seeds; if you use seeds and all, use only one pepper, not six.

Walter M. Miller’s recipe for “Gopher Stew” is collected in collected in Cooking Out of This World (ed. Anne McCaffrey, 1973).